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The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) « March 2009

Bill Muth Thorn Gehring Margaret Puffer Camille Mayers

Sandra Kamusikiri Glenda Pressley

Abstract

One problem with the literature of correctionai education (CE) and prison reform is that

the contributions of African Americans have been generaiiy negiected. This is the first of

three essays that wili begin tofiii that gap. Janie Porter Barrett was an important

Virginia ieader in the period before and after the turn of the 20th century/. She

mobilized funds through the Virginia State Federation ofCoiored Women s Clubs to

estabiish an institution for African American giris outside Richmond, and then became

its first superintendent. Throughout her tenure there. Barrett articuiated and applied

many of the principies that define the modern CE movement. The article indudes a

context for the work of African American reformers as they are (are are not)

represented in the iiterature ofourfieid. a background biographicai sketch on Barrett,

some of the themes of her infiuentiai career in CE and prison reform, and a summary.

The authors learned that the records from Barretts institution became sealed for 100

years in an effort to protect the reputations of persons who had been confined there

during their iifetimes, and they were concerned that this might make information about

Barrett's contributions even more inaccessible. They hope the material they were able

to access wiii attract attention to this exemplary correctional educator, and that others

will carry on with the traditions Barrett stood for throughout her career.

Do precisely the opposite to what is usually done, and you will have hit on

the right plan, (Rousseau, in Quick, 1916, p, 241)

The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) • March 2009 Janie Porter Barrett Muth, et. al.

Surely, then, if the present system has totally failed, there must be

something radically wrong in it, and it ought to be changed. (Carpenter,

1969/1864, vol. #2, p. 241)

Background

When correctional educators from the United States interact with members of

the same field from other nations, two or three criticisms are often articulated

at the beginning of the conversation, usually in terms much like the following:

"You Americans lock up too many people, and the proportion of African

Americans and other minorities in your prisons is a problem,' and 'Your death

penalty, and its frequency, demonstrate the brutality of your nation.' Often,

despite being engaged in the same field of education, useful dialogue cannot

be pursued until these criticisms are addressed or at least acknowledged. The

criticisms are accurate, especially when our incarceration rates are compared to

other industrialized nations. Visitors to Virginia find too many African

Americans in confinement and other forms of supervision, in South Dakota too

many Native Americans, in California too many Mexican Americans.

However, the same nations that criticize the U.S. for these reasons are

generally guilty of parallel brutalities that sometimes go unnoticed until one

visits their countries and asks about the situation. Minorities are confined in

great numbers in other nations, as well as in the U.S.-the Germans lock up too

many Turks, the Scandinavians and Bulgarians too many gypsies or Roma, the

Canadians too many Inuit and other Native Americans. This probiem is so

pervasive that it might be associated with the human condition, at least at the

current stage of our maturation. Still, no one can successfully argue that

minority incarceration is not a problem in the United States.

This series of articles can be considered a response to large gaps in the

historical record vis-à-vis the education of African Americans in prison and

African American social reformers. The series presents a criticism of past and

current approaches to penology and correctional education (CE). Further,

through the retelling of the stories of exemplary social reformers-who happen

to be African American-the series strives to establish a more balanced

historical perspective by delineating the contributions of these leaders to

broader social reform movements as well as to their immediate communities.

Moving toward a more balanced perspective. This article is part of a series of three that is intended to begin to fill a gap in the literature as it relates to the

historic CE contributions of African Americans and themes related to the

education of African Americans. The series will go backward in time. This first

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The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) « March 2009 Muth, et. al. Janie Porter Barrett

article introduces the need for the three articles and focuses on the work of Janie Porter Barrett before and after the turn of the 20th century. The second will emphasize the education of the freedmen during the occupation of the Confederacy and after the Civil War, and the role of Hampton Institute. The final article in this series will focus on the denial of education during the slavery time. The authors recognize that three articles will not fill the gap, but they hope they begin the process, and that others will pick up some of the work to fill the gap as well.

The current authors are pursuing this series of three articles not merely because they are critical of past practice and hope to provide a small redress, but also because there are remarkable, inspiring stories and records of important contributors to the field of CE that have been hidden for too long.

A short critique ofthe historical record. It will probably come as no surprise that the literature on CE and prison reform does not systematically treat professional contributions from minority members of the field. Such treatment should be considered in light of the huge proportion of minority students confined in our institutions. Minority voices are needed because, in its efforts to support the education of marginalized people and peoples, the field of CE is itself marginalized.

Part of the CE/ prison reform literature gap problem is related to the disproportionate attention given to deficit approaches to penology-the onus placed on individuals to transform their behavior, attitudes and skills so they can lead law abiding lives after release. This perspective ignores the context in which they are expected to transform. But double standards and oppression are evident historically and in current practice. Evidence suggests that double standards are applied along the lines of gender, ethnicity or minority status, and socioeconomic class (Mauer, 2003).

Correctional education is not exclusively about teaching basic academic and marketable skills. This approach misses the point about citizenship education, which is not only about educating students for citizenship, but also about positioning teachers as role models for good citizenship. Part of the struggle of citizens, and of CE, has always been for equality, democracy, and freedom; against predatory imperialism, racism, war, sexism, and genocide. The need for this may be rooted in the settling of America by displaced persons who were at-risk, persecuted, and convicted-'indentured servants' and others (Ekirch, 1987). Georgia was actually founded as a penal colony, and felons were exiled to all the colonies until the American Revolution. The transportation of offenders was one example of this colonizing displacement. Another was the

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TTie Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) • March 2009 Janie Porter Barrett Muth, et. al.

orphan trains, which were pursued on a huge, international scale to supply

cheap labor (from orphans) to the frontiers of empires.

The historical record is clear: prisons and other confinement institutions

have been part of the brutal underbelly of imperialism, and they fit into

worldwide patterns of exploitation. It would be difficult to maintain that

teachers who are not struggling against brutality are good role models for

citizenship. It would be impossible to maintain that the schools in which

correctional educators work are fostering citizenship if these issues are

neglected in the classroom. Citizenship is a meaningless term if it does not

attend to the struggle against double standards and oppression. Thomas iViott

Osborne asked central questions about our work: "Are you looking for

immediate or for permanent results? Do you believe in [mental] discipline or in

training? Do you wish to produce good prisoners or to prepare good citizens?"

(1975/1912, p. 212; emphases in original). Those questions remain timely—they

provide a context for the gap that this article helps address.

Despite these contexts, the historical record regarding education of African

Americans in prisons has been generally neglected, and when the issue has

been addressed in the record it has been approached superficially. For example,

the records of the Boston Prison Discipline Society report that in 1828 Sing Sing

Chaplain Gerrish Barrett wrote "After prayers I heard a black man read." (BPDS,

1972, vol. #1, p. 211). This was noteworthy because many states then had laws

that provided terrible penalties for slaves who tried to acquire literacy, and even

for Whites who had the courage to teach them.

Another example of this neglect is the 1922 report of the Board of

Directors of Virginia Penitentiary, which included the following: "The median

education of the 182 white inmates is that of a fifth grade in our elementary

schools, and the median education of the 402 negro inmates is that of a

second grade in our elementary schools" (Virginia, 1922, p. 30). That section of

the report was submitted by education advisor Hoke, who also served as

assistant superintendent of Richmond public schools, in charge of education

programs for backward children (p. 22). The Board emphasized the:

first school…organized at the Penitentiary…|lt] had…two classes of approximately fifteen white men in each, under an instructor who was a prison inmate. One class had men of 8 and 9 years and the other men of 10 and 11 years mentality. Attendance in these classes was entirely optional; in fact, it was conditioned on good conduct. These classes were soon followed by two other classes for negro inmates, with optional

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The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) • March 2009 Muth, et. al. Janie Porter Barrett

attendance. The two groups of white men, as originally organized, are still

[1922] attending instruction. The negro classes have been reclassified. (p. 4)

These two passages, separated in time by about 100 years and in distance

between Virginia and New York, are about all there is in the classic literature on

CE on the education of confined African Americans. In many ways this gap in

the literature corresponds to the gap between our current practice and our

aspirations. Stated alternatively, correctional educators who are alert to these

important themes of the field are concerned that most information has been

inaccessible, an effect that supports and maintains historic patterns of

oppression.

Thus the purpose for this series is twofold: to present stories that serve as counter-scripts to deficit-models of CE prevalent in the literature, and to help fill the gap in the CE/prison reform iiterature related to the education of African Americans in prison and African American social reformers. This first article highlights the contributions of an exemplary African American educator and reformer-Janie Porter Barrett. The following two sections present (a) biographical information about Janie Porter Barrett and (b) thematic glimpses of her philosophy of practice. Both sections borrow liberaiiy from Barrett's own words and reports to summarize her contributions to the fieid of CE and prison reform.

Janie Porter Barrett: A Biographical Sketch

This section is based on Kneebone, et al. (1998), pp. 357-359. BARRETT, Janie Porter (1865-1948), educator, was born in Athens, Georgia, the daughter of Julia Porter, an African American domestic servant and seamstress. The name of her father, who may have been white, is unknown. She grew up in Macon, Georgia, where her mother worked for a northern white woman named Skinner who treated the chiid almost as a member of the family. After Julia Porter married and moved to her own home, Janie Porter remained in the Skinner household. Julia Porter evidently turned down an offer by Skinner to send her daughter north to school, where she might have passed into the white world and left her family forever. Instead, Janie Porter's mother sent her to Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, the first of the self heip, vocational training schools for freed people. Porter initially had difficulty adjusting to life in a school whose students largely came from rural backgrounds. In iater years she attributed her desire to serve her fellow African Americans to Sir Walter

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The Journai of Correctional Education 60(1) • March 2009 Janie Porter Barrett Muth, et. al.

Besant's Aii Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story, a Utopian novel published in 1882 in which an heiress worked to heip the poor of London, (p, 357)

Janie Porter graduated from Hampton Institute in 1884 and taught for four

years in rural Georgia, In 1888 she attended Lucy Laney s Haines Normal and

Industrial school in Augusta, Georgia, Laney, who had herself graduated from

Atlanta University, 'sought to give a new generation of African Americans a

way to rise in the world by plain living, high thinking, cleanliness, and godliness

coupled with academic and vocational training" (p, 357), By 1889 Porter

returned to Hampton and married Harris Barrett, who had also studied at

Hampton and worked as a bookkeeper and iater became a businessman. They

lived in Hampton and had one son and three daughters' (p, 357), Barrett

founded activities for community girls: one class or club met nearly every

evening or afternoon-sewing, rug weaving, athletics, general gardening, raising

poultry, cooking, parenting ('child welfare"), quiiting, and flower growing. On

their own land, the Barretts constructed a clubhouse, and soon the Locust Street

Social Settlement was established, along the same lines as Jane Addams'

Chicago Hull House,

Locust Street typified the growing number of institutions black people were

creating for themselves, paralieiing similar developments in white society.

Another was the National Association of Colored Women, formed in 1896,

which encouraged local clubs to organize state federations. In 1908 Barrett

helped found the Virginia State Federation of Coiored Women's Clubs, and

she served as its president until 1932, (p, 357)

Barrett was concerned about the terrible conditions in which most African American children were raised, 'She often told of finding an eight year oid giri in jail and becoming convinced of the need for a home for what were then called wayward girls" (p, 358), Under her leadership, the Virginia State Federation of Colored Women s Clubs took up this cause, and Barrett toured the State gathering contributions from its African American communities. In 1912 the National Association of Colored Women held its conference in Hampton, helping to fuel Barretts fundraising initiatives. By 1913 she had gained the support of a number of White Virginia women, 'Barrett always gave due credit to the white women and their clubs, though she recognized the greater constancy of her black supporters" (p, 358), She received technical assistance from the Russell

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The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) » March 2009 Muth, e t al. Janie Porter Barrett

Sage Foundation, which focused on the influence of women In social

improvements. Eventually more than $5,000 had been devoted to the cause.

That was when her Virginia State Federation of Colored Women s Clubs purchased

a farm in Hanover County just north of Richmond, for the school for girls.

White residents near the proposed site of the school objected, but Barrett

promised to take charge of the school as its first superintendent and to move

it if it proved a nuisance to the neighbors. The objections satisfied, the General

Assembly appropriated $3,000 for the Industrial Home School for Colored

Girls, later the Virginia Industrial School for Colored Girls, and it opened its

doors in January 1915. The Virginia State Federation of Colored Women's

Clubs owned and governed the school, which had a large board of visitors

composed of whites and blacks. During the campaign to raise money, [her

husband] Harris Barren died of a stroke on 26 March 1915. (p. 358)

Janie Porter Barreft intended for the new institution to help girls develop Christian character. Student activities were regulated by the honor system. Using rewards instead of punishments in its programs, she emphasized the facility's role as a home rather than a prison. All activities were aimed at building agricultural and household skills, and cleanliness. Students were expected to work on farms or as domestics until they were able to establish their own homes. The models that had been prototyped at Hampton, and at Tuskegee Institute, were frequently replicated during Barrett's tenure as institutional superintendent. However, her personality was really the "glue" that held the various program elements together.

In the communities, Barreft struggled to 'prevent the exploitation of former students by employers in search of cheap labor" (p. 358). Her success in garnering support from private sources and the Virginia legislature was facilitated by both African American and White women.

The African American banker Maggie Lena Walker also gave generously to the school and organized a Council of Colored Women in Richmond, which took responsibility for such activities as an annual Christmas dinner for the girls and staff. Little by little, the successful school received recognition and praise, (p. 358)

In 1920 the State assumed control of the Industrial Home School for Colored Girls, but Barrett's management continued until her 1940 retirement as

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The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) • March 2009 Janie Porter Barrett Muth, et. al.

superintendent. In the 1920s the Russell Sage Foundation recognized it as one

of the best such facilities in the nation.

During the 1920s Barrett was active in the Richmond Urban League and

the Virginia Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Regarding voter

preparation as important as institutional programming for girls, Barreft wrote in

1938 that 'voting is a duty as well as a fight' (p. 358). She chaired the National

Association of Colored Women s Executive Board. In 1929 Barreft received the

William E. Harmon Award for Distinguished Achievement among Negroes; in

1930 she was invited to the White House Conference on Child Health and

Protection. After retiring she returned to Hampton. She died in 1948 and was

buried in Hampton s Eimerton Cemetery.

In 1950 the Industrial Home School for Colored Girls was renamed Janie

Porter Barreft School for Girls. Racial integration came in 1965, and

coeducational programming in 1972. In 1977 the institution became Barreft

Learning Center for Boys, and in the early 21 st century it was renovated and

became a correctional training academy.

The next section introduces some CE highlights of Barrett s leadership at

the Industrial School for Colored Girls. The School s Annual Reports, which

Barreft personally wrote, provide a glimpse of her unwavering voice and

dedication to her charges.

Barrett's Approach to Correctional Education: A Compendium of Her Writings

This section draws on Barretts Annual Reports from 1916-1921,1931, and 1939, unless otherwise noted. (References present relevant report years and page|s|.) The reports reveal Barrett's voice as she struggled, schemed, cajoled and otherwise marshaled support and resources for her school, despite, at times, overwhelming odds. These steadfast eftorts are organized under these six headings: Donations, Hardships, School, Inmate Discipline, Release, and Barrett's Comments about Her Own Dispositions. The material is intended merely to introduce these topics-more comprehensive coverage is not possible in a single article. The authors' commentary situates this material in a broader social-historical context within and outside of the CE/prison reform movement and delineates organic connections that both nourished, and were nourished by, Barrett's work.

Donations. Barrett moved comfortably between two worlds. She pursued local African American communities and northern White philanthropists with equal intensity.

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The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) • March 2009 Muth, et. al. Janie Porter Barrett

The pair of splendid young muies with new harness, the delicious

Christmas dinner, and a pair of new shoes for each girl, given by the

Councii of Colored Women of Richmond, our strongest Federated Ciub,

brought joy enough to last for days. The Federated Clubs of Covington had

a sugar shower just before the sugar shortage was announced |a home

front activity to support the troops during WW I|, and supplied us with

sugar at a time when we could not buy it at any price. At the request of

these women and under the leadership of the public school teachers, the

schooi children of Covington gave a barrel of potatoes. By having each

child bring two or three potatoes this was accomplished without putting

anyone to very great expense. (1918, p.. 12)

Mrs. Falconer…[gave] ten dollars toward a moving-picture outfit, which she

felt would give a pleasure that the giris of the school, who are trying to

improve, ought to have. In a few minutes the audience gave in piedges

and cash one hundred and ninety-five dollars, almost enough money to

pay for the machine. (1920, pp. 10-11)

Our schooiroom was made very comfortable this winter by a splendid large stove, a gift that came to us through Dr. Gregg. This is the first year we have had adequate blackboards. We need maps, more desks, and more school books.(1921, p. 20)

Barrett expressed thanks for '…the barrels of clothing friends send from time to time' (1921, p. 27). Regarding Thanksgiving dinner after a terrible influenza attack at the institution, she wrote that 'When it was all over and everyone had pulled through, I could feel almost glad for our troubles because it revealed so many friends that might not have been discovered' (1919, p. 12). Barrett was even thankful for governmental services that wouid normally be extended to White citizens without reservation. She noted that

The white farm demonstrator for Hanover County, after being appeaied to by our president and others, has consented to come and look us over occasionaiiy and has given our farmer the privilege of writing him for any information he desires, so we are sure that we are going to make real progress now. (1919, p. 15)

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The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) • March 2009 Janie Porter Barrett Muth, et. al.

Barrett's work was situated in impoverished conditions difticult to imagine

by contemporary American educators, even those that work in marginalized

settings and prisons. (However, they likely typify prison schools in many

developing countries-see, for example, Imhabekhai, 2002). Yet, in its broadest

form, the CE work of Janie Porter Barreft in Virginia can be compared to that of

John Henry Pestalozzi in Switzerland or Anton Makarenko in the Soviet Union

(Gehring & Eggieston, 2006). Barreft emerged on the scene at a time when her

people had almost nothing, as a resuit of hundreds of years of systematic

brutality. Pestalozzi built a CE infrastructure when the Swiss had nothing-after

the terrible brutality of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars;

Makarenko built a Soviet CE infrastructure after the devastation of the

Bolshevik Revolution, World War I, and the Civil War. In other words, the

condition of African Americans, after neariy three centuries in North America,

was as if they had just emerged from an intense, protracted war.

Hardships. Barreft pursued State funding with unequivocal directness a n d – perhaps by today's standards-modesty. At one point Barreft wrote that the

institution had '…aii the modern conveniences except the lighting" (1916, p. 7).

This statement was overly optimistic about the institution. For example, she

later wrote "Our water pipes were frozen for weeks and weeks" (1918, p. 10).

She reiterated the materiai needs of the institution periodicaiiy in her reports.

For exampie, "The rapidly increasing number of girls on parole makes the need

for a parole officer imperative" (1920, p. 15).

Everyone has been obliged to do double work and there has not been one

word of complaint. It is the kind of service that makes faiiure impossible….

It would have been impossible to do what has been done had they |the

Board of Managers] not stood so completely behind me. (1920, p. 23)

We still have a poor farm. I have come to the conclusion that it requires not only rich land but brains to farm successfully and, though I hate to confess it, brains are almost as scarce as hens' teeth among some of our farmerettes and of course the land speaks for itself. (1921, p. 21 ; emphasis in original)

My earnest plea to the Board is that if possibie we get an adequate appropriation…We who are managing affairs in the institution are at a loss to know what to do when it gets too coid for the children to go barefooted

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The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) ° March 2009 Muth, et. al. Janie Porter Barrett

and shoes must be bought,,,and the children must have at least a sweater;

and finally, when the time comes to open school and no provision

is made to pay a teacher,,.

There has never been a time when our children have had all the clothes

they need for a change. They have always been obliged to wash their

clothes at night in order to have them clean for the next day,,,.

We need school the year round with two iiterary teachers and an industrial

teacher,,,We need more library books. We need a sum set aside to meet

the expenses of visiting the girls and investigating homes,,,We need

transportation for girls,,,We need domestic-science equipment and sewing-

room equipment,,,We need dentai services.

We need-and this is a crying need-mentai tests for our girls. It is very difficult to ascertain whether our girls' failures are their own fault or that of those of us who have paroled them when they have not the mentality to make their own pay,

I should like banjos, guitars, ukuleles, cornet, fife and drum; we need an

orchestra and a drum corps, (1921, pp, 31-33)

After 16 years of operation, Barrett still reported salient needs, 'We still have no cows,,,,I look forward to the time when we can afford whole miik for every girl" (1931, p, 6),

Barrett's running catalogue of needs again reflects the paucity of resources at her disposal, but, as well, her visionary stance (',,,orchestra, drum corps.,,") toward education. This stance is grounded in the Social Settlement Movement that flourished in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in London's East End, and manifested in such social projects as Toynbee Hall and the People's Palace, These university settlements, described in near-utopian terms in Walter Besant's (1903) Aii Sorts of Conditions of Men. epitomized broad liberal, social and civic curricuia, including beautiful libraries, great performance halls, gymnasiums and winter gardens. In 1920 America, the settlement movement also stirred Jane Addams' work at Hull House in Chicago, and social workers in hundreds of other settlement houses throughout the U,S,

School. Barrett's passion for education is reflected in her hands-on oversight of the school. Her exulted notions about the power of clubs as an

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The Journal of Correctional Education 60(1) • March 2009 Janie Porter Barrett Muth, et. al.

extension of the curriculum are based on Besant's (1903) work and her own

successful experiences with social clubs at Locust Street Seftlement House.

A thorough course in domestic science will be given which will include the

care of poultry, vegetable and flower gardens, lawns and anything else

that we find will be needed. Miss Hyde, the lady principal of Hampton

Institute…promised to help us plan this course. (1916, p. 10)

Special activities and clubs included…were: Charm Club, Y-Teens, Junior

Red Cross, Girl Scouts, choir, 4-H Club, Dramatic Ciub, New Homemakers,

Student Councii…Religious Education. (1916, p. 10)

In the Social Settlement Movement, clubs were not merely designed to relieve monotony and the hardness of life among the poorer classes; they provided opportunities for what Wenger (1998) calls communities of practice. On one level clubs provided a communal structure for informal learning, on another, community where pro-social and pro-educational identities were forged and nurtured. In Barrett's day this social learning model was exemplified by the summer program at Shellbanks-the farm at Hampton Institute-where rural African American youth were recruited to live in the dorms for a few weeks, wear the institute's uniform, participate in 4H style projects, and imagine themselves as college students (Brawley, 1939).

Within the largely agrarian program at the Industrial School, Barreft

lobbied, cajoled and advocated for high academic standards and certifications

commensurate with schools for white children. 'We are greatly handicapped

because we have neither school house nor proper equipment. Miss Peterson,

Superintendent of Kilbourne Farm, the school for delinquent white girls, sent us

some of the books that her girls had finished using' (1918, p. 18). "This year we

were fortunate in gefting the State Board of Education to put our school on its

list and…supplied with a literary teacher and an industrial teacher' (1919, p. 12).

She noted:

We still have two sessions a day….If we could have a

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