Opportunities For The Education Of The Negro Youth In The City Of Houston

One of the criticisms of the Negro during the years since his emancipation has been his neglect to keep available record of his outstanding achievements in community life, particularly educational. Too much has been left to records and statistical data compiled by the white race. Too often has the task of setting down what the race is achieving in permanent form been left solely to the race historians, who record the average rather than place emphasis upon the social consequences of advancement par excellence. Too little have we attracted attention to our highest attainments. And so, that ample record and statistical data on educational advantages offered Negro Youth in Houston might be separated from the whole body of data compiled, as it were, in mass, and put down in a simple and distinct form; that due recognition of the best offerings for colored in the way of education in a community might be duly registered; that, as at one time attention has been focused on Home, because Christianity achieved its most there; at another time on France, because civilization received there its highest contribution; again, on Italy, because it monopolized the richest trade; on England, because democratic government was developed there in the highest degree, similarly marked attention in Negro thought should be focused on Houston , because there educational facilities for Negroes have no equal, no parallel. With all this in mind, I attempt this treatise. There are innumerable other considerations which lend a peculiar interest to this study. But I shall only say further that the progress in the development of the school system made in the last six or seven years, a comparison between 1923 and 1930, has been so colossal and so tremendous as to fascinate