Throughout history, Black educators have played a vital role in shaping minds, breaking barriers, and fighting for equal access to education. Their dedication went far beyond the classroom, often intertwining with activism, leadership, and community empowerment.
Here are seven influential Black teachers whose legacies continue to impact, inspire and thrive today.
1. Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955)
With only $1.50 and a dream, Mary McLeod Bethune founded the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in 1904. At the time, Daytona Beach, Florida, had no viable educational options for Black children, according to Women’s History. Schools were grossly underfunded, overcrowded, and segregated. Black children received fewer instructional hours, and Black teachers were paid far less than their white counterparts.
Bethune’s school began with just five students. Within two years, that number had grown to 250, Bryan University noted. In 1923, the school merged with the all-male Cookman Institute, eventually becoming Bethune-Cookman University. Bethune remained at the helm until 1942 and continued her work as a civil rights leader and presidential advisor. As vice president of the NAACP and an influential voice in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet,” she used education as a lever for social change, determined to cultivate what she called a generation of “New Negro Women.”
2. Septima Poinsette Clark (1898–1987)
Often called the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement,” Septima Clark understood that literacy was a revolutionary tool. She began her teaching career on Johns Island, South Carolina, in 1916 and later worked throughout the state, often under grueling conditions, per King Institute. She pursued her own education during summer breaks, studying under W.E.B. Du Bois and earned degrees from Benedict College and Hampton Institute.
In 1956, Clark was fired after refusing to resign from the NAACP, following South Carolina’s passage of a law banning civil rights affiliations for public employees. But this only pushed her deeper into grassroots organizing. She joined the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, where she developed Citizenship Schools—programs that taught Black adults how to read, write, and understand their rights as citizens.
Rosa Parks was one of her students. When the state shut down Highlander, Clark carried her model to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), where she became director of education. Her workshops helped thousands of Black Americans gain the tools to vote and organize, directly fueling the civil rights movement.
3. Marva Collins (1936–2015)
In 1975, after years of disillusionment with Chicago’s public school system, Marva Collins took matters into her own hands. With her own savings, she opened Westside Preparatory School in her home, focusing on children who had been labeled as “unteachable” or learning disabled, according to National Endowment For The Humanities.
Her teaching philosophy centered on classical education, discipline, and high expectations, became an instrumental tool at the school. Within one year, every student exceeded expectations.
Collins became a national icon. Her success led to honors, awards, and a television movie about her life starring Cicely Tyson. President Ronald Reagan even offered her the role of Secretary of Education, which she declined to continue teaching. Collins proved that when educators believe deeply in their students’ potential and refuse to lower the bar, extraordinary things happen.
“All children can learn,” Collins said previously. “For 30 years, we have done what other schools declare impossible…I don’t make excuses–I take responsibility. If children fail, it’s about me, not them. I tell my students, if you think excellence is difficult, you don’t want to try failure.”
4. Fannie Jackson Coppin (1837–1913)
Born into slavery, Fannie Jackson Coppin rose to become a trailblazer in higher education. In 1865, she became the second Black woman in the U.S. to earn a college degree, graduating from Oberlin College, an institution known for its early support of both Black and female students, Bryan University noted.
Coppin went on to teach at the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, where she quickly ascended to principal in 1869, making her the first Black woman to lead an American secondary school. She believed in academic rigor, vocational training, and moral development, noting how education should empower Black students to become self-reliant leaders.
Coppin retired in 1906 after four decades of service, having laid the groundwork for future generations of educators.
5. Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)
Booker T. Washington’s journey to education began with extraordinary hardship. Born into slavery, he worked in salt furnaces and coal mines as a boy, squeezing in school wherever possible. Inspired by tales of Hampton Institute, he walked 500 miles to attend, eventually earning high marks and returning as a teacher, as reported by History.
In 1881, at age 25, Washington became the founding principal of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, now Tuskegee University. He stressed the importance of vocational training, believing economic self-reliance was key to Black advancement. Though his accommodationist stance toward segregation drew criticism from contemporaries like W.E.B. Du Bois, Washington’s leadership and institution-building efforts had lasting influence. He was a bridge between two eras: slavery and Black self-determination.
6. Charlotte Forten Grimké (1837–1914)
A member of a prominent abolitionist family, Charlotte Forten Grimké became one of the first Black women to teach formerly enslaved people in the South during the Civil War. According to the National Park Service, as part of the Port Royal Experiment, a program designed to help newly freed communities transition to freedom, she taught in South Carolina, documenting her experiences in detailed journals that remain essential historical records. Forten became the first Black teacher in Beaufort County when she joined the staff of the Penn School on St. Helena Island.
During her time there, classes were held at Brick Baptist Church, a historic location that later honored her legacy with a commemorative marker near its entrance. Forten Grimké meticulously documented her experiences in journals and shared her observations with a wider audience through her published essay, “Life on the Sea Islands,” which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1864. She continued teaching at various schools on St. Helena Island until the Civil War’s conclusion.
Forten Grimké later taught in integrated schools in the North, a rare achievement for her time. Her commitment to racial equality and education as liberation positioned her at the intersection of abolition, women’s rights, and civil rights decades before the modern movements took shape.
7. Joe Louis Clark (1938–2020)
Made famous by the film Lean on Me, Joe Louis Clark was the dynamic and controversial principal of Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey. Known for carrying a bullhorn and baseball bat through the halls, Clark demanded excellence, discipline, and personal accountability from his students and teachers.
According to CNN, the legendary principal once “expelled 300 students for ‘fighting, vandalism, abusing teachers, and drug possession’ in one day.”
Under his leadership, the school went from chaos to order, with improved test scores and student morale.
Teacher Appreciation: Black Educators Who Saved Us
was originally published on
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