Peabody Academy was established in 1880 in Troy, North Carolina, by the American Missionary Association (AMA) for the sole purpose of educating African Americans of Montgomery County, North Carolina. The Negro boarding school attracted students from all of the surrounding rural areas including towns now known as Biscoe, Mount Gilead, Candor, Pekin, Star, in addition to Troy, North Carolina. Peabody Academy was the only institution, at the time, that served the educational needs of African Americans.
After U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Montgomery County Public School System began the process of integrating its schools under the threat of cutting off federal funds if they did not comply. Almost fourteen years after the Brown v. Board decision and nearly four years after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, the Montgomery County School Board voted to close Peabody School on March 28, 1968. The Peabody Academy was then repurposed and reopened as an integrated Troy Middle School. Today, the buildings are occupied by the Troy Housing Authority with a few rooms on the bottom floor repurposed as the Peabody Museum.
History Founding board of trustees
Since Troy had the largest population of African Americans in Montgomery County and surrounding area, Reverend Ellis and the AMA chose the small town as the location to establish a school for freedman. Peter Green, Alexander C. Powell, and James Kron formed the original Board of Trustees for Peabody Academy. All three were former slaves and leaders in their respective communities. Mr. Green represented the Cheek Creek Township, which is the modern-day Mount Gilead/Pekin area in south-central Montgomery County. Mr. Powell represented the Rocky Springs Township, which is in between Candor and Norman area in the southeastern Montgomery County and northern Richmond County. Mr. Kron represented the Uwharrie Township, which is west of Troy in western Montgomery County. Mr. Green, born in 1810, was the elder of the three men and served as chairman. In 1878, W. H. Watkins of Troy deeded a tract of land to the Trustees of Peabody Academy for "the purpose of erecting an academy for Negroes on the road leading south from Troy".
Predecessor to Peabody Academy Before Peabody was established, the Freeman's Bureau established a school in Troy as part of its mission to educate African Americans across the South and former-slave states after the Civil War. In 1866–1867, General Daniel Sickles commanded the Department of the South in District 2, or the Carolinas, and had Negro schools established. The Freeman Bureau worked with Lockey Simmons, local plantation owner of 40 slaves, to establish and help fund a Negro school in Troy, called Simmon's Tan Yard. Louiza, a former slave, was his assistant. Upon his departure from Troy and death in 1880, the American Missionary Association took over the work of educating the Negro students of Troy and Montgomery County.
Naming of Peabody Academy Although it can't be confirmed at this point, it is likely that the Peabody Academy was named after George Peabody, a prominent American international investor. George Peabody is considered to be the father of modern philanthropy. His aims were to improve society, promote education, and provide the poor with the means to help themselves, including African Americans in the South. He established the Peabody Education Fund in 1867 with $2,000,000 in funding. The fund was instrumental in the construction, endowments, scholarships, teacher and industrial education for newly freed American slaves.
It is considered by scholars to be one of the first truly modern philanthropies because of the way it went about giving its capital. The Peabody trustees devised a system of self-help by which the Foundation would provide challenge grants to local communities and the assistance was strategically targeted. Thus, the relatively meager return on the Fund's principal could be leveraged. The Fund would sought out locations where there were sufficient numbers of students and cooperative public officials who would combine the relatively small grant, tax money, or community support to build schools.
By the second decade of the Twentieth Century a large number of southern communities had been able to build schools because of efforts by the Peabody Fund joined by others such as the Slater Fund, the Jeanes Fund and the giant General Education Board, established by John D. Rockefeller.
Douglas Hall In 1913 under the leadership of Principal and Reverend Sims, a successful fundraising campaign would help collect approximately $6,000 for the erection of a brick building to serve as the main building of Peabody Academy. The building would be called Douglas Hall. These funds would also be dedicated to constructing a new boy's dormitory to be named Anderson Hall. However, WWI would put a halt to Rev Sim's ambitious plan.
By 1920, Douglas Hall was near completion and a magnificent structure it was. Peabody students, staff, and carpenters sent by the AMA joined to construct the school's main building. It was a cathedral-like building, composed of brick, with a wall of windows over 25-feet high surrounding the large front double doors. It was modern in every respect, including indoor plumbing and electric lighting. Classrooms were on the first and second floor. The main feature of the first floor was the beautiful chapel and auditorium. The basement housed the school cafeteria and science laboratories.
Douglas Hall was destroyed by fire in 1946. The current standing Main Hall for Peabody Academy was built on the same foundation of Douglas Hall.
The American Missionary Association The American Missionary Association (AMA) was a nondenominational abolitionist society dedicated to providing education and political rights to African Americans. The AMA was founded in Syracuse, New York, in 1846 through the merger of a group of abolitionists who supported the uprising of slaves on the Amistad in 1839 with several small missionary organizations. Though the AMA's constitution stated that spreading the Christian gospel to America and other nations was the primary goal of the association, it quickly began to center its activities around anti-slavery missions. As slaves were freed during the Civil War, the AMA altered its mission to making provisions for them. More than 500 churches and schools were set up by the AMA to help acculturate the newly freed slaves. The (AMA) sent Reverend William Ellis to Troy, North Carolina, to build a Congregational church and school.
Reverend Orishatukeh Faduma Tenure
After the death of Rev. Ellis, Reverend Orishatukeh Faduma, a native African and graduate of London University and Yale, led the school for 17 years starting in 1895. Rev. Faduma was a fine man of moral character and integrity, born in Sierra-Leon. Rev. Faduma graduated from Methodist High School, studied at Queens College in Taunton and London University. He received a Bachelor of Arts In 1885, the first man from Sierra-Leon to do so. He continued his education at Yale University Divinity School, receiving the Bachelor of Divinity in 1895. Peabody excelled academically under the leadership of Fuduma. The curriculum in those days included courses in the Theology, Masonry, Early Childhood Development, Finance & Economics, Mathematics, Science, and English.
Rev. Faduma not only served as principal of Peabody Academy but he was also pastor of the Congregational Church of Troy.
Rev. Faduma was an avid support of W.E.B. Dubois and served as a member of the American Negro Academy (ANA), founded in Washington, D.C., in 1897 by Dubois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Blanche K. Bruce and many other prominent members. It was the first organization in the United States to support African-American academic scholarship. DuBois suggested that a Talented Tenth of African Americans, primarily composed of blacks trained in classical higher education, could lead in educating masses of black citizens. He knew that most of the latter, who still lived in the rural South, would likely work in rural or unskilled jobs. But he wanted to provide opportunities for blacks who could surpass those limits. Rev. Faduma was in prime position to carry forward the mission of the organization being that he served as principal of Peabody Academy, a rural school with a focus on teaching Negro children a trade.
Notable alumni
Julius L. Chambers Julius Chambers was the third Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., serving from 1984 to 1993. Chambers was born and raised in Mount Gilead, North Carolina. He remembered when his father, an auto mechanic, had a white customer who refused to pay for repairs, and none of the white lawyers in the town would take his case. The experience led Chambers to want to become a lawyer. He would go on to become one of this country's great civil rights lawyers and leaders, devoting his entire adult life to justice and civil rights law.
Chambers' dedication to equality and justice was shaped by his formative experiences as a boy in segregated North Carolina, in particular by the experiences of his father with discrimination. As a result, he held a firm belief that education was paramount to changing the trajectory of his future. He attended and graduated from Peabody Academy High School in Troy, North Carolina. After high school, he attended North Carolina Central University where he earned summa cum laude honors. Chambers went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Michigan and then enrolled as one of the first African American students at the University of North Carolina School of Law. He was a brilliant law student at UNC School of Law, where he not only graduated with high honors but also graduated first in his class. He was pioneer in many areas including the first African-American editor-in-chief of The North Carolina Law Review, a student-operated law journal at UNC School of Law. While teaching at Columbia Law School, he obtained a Master of Laws degree.
His reputation first caught the attention of then-Legal Defense Fund Director-Counsel, Thurgood Marshall. Chambers was one of the first two LDF scholarship recipients. He also was LDF's first Legal Fellow. This began his lifelong association with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where he worked as an intern and lawyer, cooperating attorney, board member and board chair, and, finally, as Director-Counsel, a position he held from 1984 to 1993. In 1993, Chambers left NAACP LDF to become Chancellor at North Carolina Central University, his college alma mater. He remained chancellor at North Carolina Central until he retired in 2001, when he rejoined the firm of Ferguson, Stein & Chambers.
Chambers was a founding member of Ferguson, Stein & Chambers, the first integrated law firm in North Carolina. The firm became a model for civil rights law firm practice in the private bar. Over his years in practice at the firm, and later at NAACP LDF, Chambers litigated and argued landmark civil rights cases in the United States Supreme Court, including Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971) (school desegregation), Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986) (voting rights), Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971) and Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405 (1975) (employment discrimination), Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899 (1996) (redistricting), among many others.