Teacher Training and Vocational Education at HBCUs
Tuskegee and Florida A&M Universities
Historically Black Colleges and Universities have been key preservers of African American accomplishment. HBCUs have highlighted advances in education, agriculture, and architecture—stories that would otherwise be unknown.
Jane McAllister Shaped Generations of Teachers
Jane McAllister seated at desk reading document
Students in a teacher education classroom at Jackson State College for Negro Teachers, 1950
Many HBCUs began as “normal schools” where teacher education and training were the center of the curriculum. Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Jackson State College for Negro Teachers, and Florida Agricultural & Mechanical College each developed education models for Black communities. Black educators like Dr. Jane McAllister were at the vanguard of such work.
Dr. Jane McAllister was an educator and researcher and the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in education from Teachers College at Columbia University. She also conducted research on Black schools in Louisiana and worked for the Rosenwald Fund. McAllister founded the education program at Jackson College for Negro Teachers’ (now Jackson State University) and developed teacher training programs at Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (now Virginia State University), Fisk University, Miner Teachers College (now University of the District of Columbia), Grambling State University, and Southern University.
The Lucy Moten School and College of Education at Florida A&M
In 1887, the State Normal College for Colored Students—now Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU)—was founded on a former Tallahassee plantation. Built in 1932 on FAMU’s campus, Lucy Moten Elementary School taught Black elementary-age school children and trained teachers. The school was named for Lucy E. Moten, principal of Washington, D.C.’s Miner Normal School and Howard University alumna, who was a pioneer in the “normal school” teacher-training method.
In 1953, the Lucy Moten School became part of the FAMU College of Education and changed its name to the Developmental Research School. Dr. Anne Gayles-Felton, who taught at FAMU for more than 50 years, helped advance the College of Education by “getting to the core of what life is about” for students.
FAMU is still one of the nation’s largest HBCUs, and its motto, “Head, Heart, Hand, Field” speaks to its history and focus.
Tuskegee’s Rosenwald Schools
Impressed by Booker T. Washington, philanthropist Julius Rosenwald funded new schools through Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Faculty and students at Tuskegee designed and built the first six Rosenwald schools, which went on to number more than 5,000 across 15 states. Beyond the one- and two-room schoolhouse buildings, Black communities also leveraged Rosenwald funds to build teacher housing, work shops, and other infrastructure. The schools provided an excellent education and were vital to the success of the post-slavery African American community.
The Second Morrill Act and Land-Grant HBCUs
In 1890 the Second Morrill Act was signed into law to address a lack of educational funding and resources for African Americans. The law designated 19 HBCUs as land-grant institutions, including Tuskegee University, Florida A&M University, and Prairie View A&M University.
Land-grant universities have a mission to support research and provide outreach to agricultural and farming communities. Through innovative sustainable farming and creative community outreach programs, HBCU land-grant universities continue to invent and study ways to grow food sustainably. They also share the fruits of their research with their communities.
Prairie View A&M’s Industrial Education Award
Prairie View A & M University (PVAMU)—formerly Alta Vista Agriculture & Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth—has been a model for vocational training since its founding in 1876. By the 1950s, Prairie View was nationally recognized for its commitment to industrial education. This Industrial Education Award symbolizes the long history of land-grant HBCUs that provided valuable resources to African American students.
Extension Programs
Extension programs enabled land-grant universities like Tuskegee Institute and Florida A&M University to advance agricultural practices and farm management for rural communities. Such programs helped to develop farming and home economics skills—from sweet potato planting to rug knitting.
Today, extension programs remain a major feature of HBCUs’ commitment to community engagement and civic uplift. Through 4-H programs, HBCU extension agents provide learning experiences to youth in areas like gardening, conservation, and livestock management.
Tuskegee Institute’s Movable Schools
Dr. George Washington Carver in Tuskegee Institute’s experimental garden
The Jesup Wagon, 1906
George Washington Carver helped Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute's agriculture department become a world-renowned research center. In his garden, Carver experimented with many crops—most notably the peanut—and tested different farming methods. Through Carver’s work, Tuskegee provided local farmers with seeds and farming tools and shared new developments in farming methods. Tuskegee shared such methods during its annual Negro Farmers' Conference.
Since many farmers could not come to campus, Tuskegee's faculty and extension agents traveled to them. The institute’s founding president, Booker T. Washington, worked with Carver to design and build a traveling wagon that could share information and help struggling farmers. In 1906, Tuskegee alumnus Thomas Campbell became the first extension agent assigned to operate the Jesup Agricultural Wagon (named for its founder, Morris Jesup). The wagon functioned as a movable school, offering rural communities tools, seeds, demonstrations, and new techniques to improve the quality of crops and livestock. Tuskegee’s innovative program became a worldwide model.
From the Jesup Wagon
to the School on Wheels
The Jesup Wagon was a movable classroom reaching farmers across Macon County, Alabama. Named after its benefactor Morris Jesup, it carried tools, fertilizer, seeds, and vegetables to farms.
By 1918 Tuskegee Institute needed a modern vehicle to support its growing extension program. Named after educator Seaman A. Knapp, the Knapp Agricultural Truck also carried Tuskegee-trained nurses on their rural rounds. This new truck enabled Tuskegee Institute to reach rural farmers beyond Macon County.
In 1923 the Booker T. Washington Agricultural School on Wheels traveled further across the state, teaching practical life skills and homecare. Tuskegee ended the program in 1944, but its modern extension programs still support far-flung communities.
George Washington Carver, Scientist
During his nearly five decades at Tuskegee, from 1896 to 1943, George Washington Carver developed Tuskegee's agriculture department into a world-renowned research center. In his garden, Carver experimented with various crops and tested different methods that helped farmers improve the quality of their crops and livestock. Through his rural extension work, Carver helped farmers increase their yield of crops by explaining the benefits of fertilization and crop rotation to restore nutrients to the soil.
The Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Center for Agroecology
Florida A&M University (FAMU) supports local farming communities through its Cooperative Extension Program services.
In 2022, FAMU created the Lola Hampton-Frank Pinder Center for Agroecology. Hampton and Pinder were land stewards who championed sustainable farming practices. Lola Hampton was a sharecropper who purchased 32 acres of land in the 1940s. She farmed and managed the land and tended to its fruit trees, goats, dairy cows, and more. Frank Pinder was a FAMU graduate and extension agent for Alachua County who later worked for the Farm Security Administration. He spent much of his time teaching and conducting agricultural research in Liberia, West Africa.
Architecture and Building Trades
Tuskegee mechanical engineering class
Walter T. Bailey and his architecture class at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, 1906
Building arts—including architecture, bricklaying, carpentry, and more—were integral to the early vocational and industrial training at HBCUs like Tuskegee Institute and Texas Southern University (TSU). Students and faculty at both institutions designed, constructed, and maintained campus buildings. Robert Taylor, one of the first professionally trained Black architects in America, designed over 40 of Tuskegee’s campus buildings. He also established a pre-architecture preparatory program for students. Photographs and blueprints located in Tuskegee’s archives show the attention to detail and consideration of locale that animated the planning of the campus.
John Chase, an alumnus and eventual faculty member at Texas Southern University, designed TSU’s modern urban campus.
John Chase, Architect
John Chase was Texas’s first African American licensed architect. Some of his commissions included designing 21 buildings and overseeing multiple renovations at Texas Southern University (TSU) between the 1950s and 1990s. As professor of architectural drafting at TSU, Chase urged his students to care for regional communities and their needs.
Building Tuskegee Institute from the Ground Up
At Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, vocational courses like woodworking and welding provided the know-how for building Tuskegee's campus. Tuskegee students constructed buildings and made furniture for the school, giving the students a profound sense of ownership and pride. For Booker T. Washington, such experiences were proof that economic independence could be achieved through practical education, self-help, and hard work.
In 1892, students built Cassedy Industrial Hall to serve as the campus’s original trades building. The three-story brick building became a symbol of student excellence, dedication, and the possibilities of mechanical and building trades. In 1900, architect Robert Taylor designed Slater-Armstrong Memorial Trades’ Building to house Tuskegee’s growing trades programs.