University of Louisiana's First African-American Student?

[Turbine]

SLII Demonstration Farm.

In 1898 the State of Louisiana had decreed that SLII be an all-white campus. Now the year was 1909, two years into the UL Demo Farm and the United States Department of Agriculture had other ideas. Demonstration Farms were for whites and blacks. In short they were for farmers, period.

Aside from the ground on which he stood, the individual above is the focal point of a photo taken on the University of Louisiana campus in 1909. He is the African-American, the best dressed of the group working, learning, or teaching on SLII's campus. But who he was remains a mystery.

The occasion of the photo was to celebrate the success of Louisiana’s Demonstration Farm.

Unlike Experimental Farms where a farmer set aside 5 or so acres as a trial and error exercise, This U.S. Department of Agriculture supported farm was a Demonstration Farm. The farm was to educate and showcase methods previously proven to work.

It was open to any race.

Farmers were to come from all around the area to take part in methods that would make their own farms more productive. Not only had the landowners participated but foremen, farm hands and sharecroppers as well.

Special agents of the USDA were appointed for each farm. The most famous of these was Dr. S.A. Knapp; it was his chief assistant D. N. Barrow that was assigned to Louisiana’s Demo Farm.

So who was the man in the picture?

Was he an SLII employee? If he was he was learning while earning. What a coop that would have been.

Was he a USDA teacher, assistant, or government employee? Was he a temporary student, work hand, or volunteer? Was he a landowner, farmer, sharecropper or foremen? Was he a Black Farmer invited by Mr. Barrow? In Alanson Wood Moore’s diaries of 27th July, 1901 he mentions a Farmers Institute meeting in which D. N. Barrow was in attendance and a Negro farmer came to sell produce. Was the gentleman in the picture in a similar situation? Was he a friend of Mr. Barrow, a colleague, a de facto student, a local Acadiana Farmer? While we can't answer these questions, it is worth looking at the options since the case can be made for all of the above.

One thing we can narrow down for sure is the focal gentleman in the picture was either earning, learning or doing both at the University of Louisiana. By taking advantage of this opportunity, this black farmer would have been more knowlegable than most of his peers, black or white.

The benefit of USDA Demonstration farms was not just for the white man. According to the Virginia Cooperative Extension they were expressly for African-American farmers as well.

From the beginning, those in charge of farm demonstration work realized that improvement of living standards among the African-American farmers was just as important as among whites. In areas were African-American farmers existed, they were encouraged to participate.

Since black farmers were known to speak up at Farmers' Institute meetings. And based on the stated Virginia history of USDA Demonstration farms, it is more than conjecture to conclude that their expertise might be used on the University of Louisiana USDA Demo farm as well.

Many of these seemingly ignorant people, while not educated in the way that we consider education, have in reality a very high form of education--that which they have gotten out of contact with nature. Only a few days ago I heard one of these old farmers, who could neither read nor write, give a lesson before a Farmers' Institute that I shall never forget. The old man got up on the platform and began with this remark: "I'se had no chance to study science, but I'se been making some science for myself," and then he held up before the audience a stalk of cotton with only two bolls on it. He said he began his scientific work with that stalk. Then he held up a second stalk and showed how the following year he had improved the soil so that the stalk contained four bolls, and then he held up a third stalk and showed how he had improved the soil and method of cultivation until the stalk contained six bolls, and so he went through the whole process until he had demonstrated to his fellow farmers how he had made a single stalk of cotton produce twelve or fourteen bolls. At the close of the old man's address somebody in the audience asked what his name was. He replied, "When I didn't own no home and was in debt, they used to call me old Jim Hill, but now that I own a home and am out of debt, they call me 'Mr. James Hill.'

Farmers Institutes were think tanks and Experimental Stations were farms where they would try out new ideas. Both were precursor to Demonstration Farms such as existed on Louisiana's campus in 1907 and beyond. The excerpt below shows that while Colleges and Institutes could never handle the number of farmers needing training. Demonstration farms were the answer and even though UL was referred to as an Institute at the time, the school was one of the first to become a USDA Demo Farm.

According to the book A History of Farmers Institutes

In 1902, the United States Department of Agriculture reaffirmed its commitment to supporting farmers' institutes, recognizing that "The colleges, from their very nature, are not capable of indefinite expansion; their influence is necessarily restricted largely to the younger men and women, to those who will be the farmers of the future. To meet the needs of the present for the broad dissemination of reliable agricultural information among practical farmers, no better agency has been found than the farmers' institutes.

By this time, the number of persons attending farmers' institutes, as reported to the Office of Experiment Stations, had grown to "approximately 819,000, which is eighty times the number of students taking regular courses in agriculture, dairying, veterinary science, and household economy in our land-grant colleges, and nearly twenty times the number enrolled in all departments of those colleges, either in regular or special courses, in collegiate or post-graduate courses. . . .

. . . Demonstrations, as a method of instruction, were not only utilized in conjunction with the educational trains but with other types of institutes.

In the end UL's USDA approved Demo Farm became a place where farmers could come and learn already proven techniques. For short periods of time you could go with your employees (farm hands) and in a short period of time learn how to make your farm more productive.

So while UL's place in history as the first University (in the deep south) to integrate is secure. It is possible ... no it's probable that the first African America to study at UL happened almost fifty years prior.

[NewsCopy]

Lafayette Advertiser
Sept 27, 1907
	Special Agent of Bureau of Plant Industry to Be in Charge to Demonstrate the Growing of Cotton, Corn and Crops of this Section
	Mr. Barrow is chief assistant to Dr. S.A. Knapp, who is the special agent of the United States Department of Agriculture in the work of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and this particular branch of the bureau's service is known as the farmer's co-operative demonstration work. Mr. Barrow stated that the usual method of establishing these demonstration farms is merely to have a special agent of the bureau arrange with any farmer in a given community to set aside from one to five acres of ground to be cultivated in the manner prescribed by the special agent, the seed used being furnished by the Department of Agriculture and the farmer agreeing to keep an accurate account and record of everything done. In the present case, however, a special agent of the bureau will be put in charge of the Industrial Institute grounds set aside for that purpose and will demonstrate the growing of cotton, corn and the general crops of this section according to the methods already proved to be the best. The farm is not to be an experiment, but a demonstration.

[WebWatchDog]

I would have said he was a regular farm hand except for the neck tie and working with the squatting white guy. The all white shirts are interesting and could have been a uniform. What building is that? If it is Martin Hall then this is the center of the quadrangle.

[Carmon]

I did a search on farm since its in the news raginpagin didn't let me down it has everything. I have never heard this story anywhere, is it unknown lost or was it covered up years ago? The guy is obviously a real farmer dressed up to respect the college and USDA. I now think UL must keep the farm on Johnston street and build on its heritage. There HAS to be something we could use the farm for. I'm not saying it has to be African American related but that would work to.

[CajunFun]

I would have said he was a regular farm hand except for the neck tie and working with the squatting white guy. The all white shirts are interesting and could have been a uniform. What building is that? If it is Martin Hall then this is the center of the quadrangle.

For a long time, there were only 3 or 4 buildings on campus.

And what became the Quad was, indeed, a demo farm, and remained so for some years.

For a while, it was also the baseball field... amazing, because the batters faced the windows of Martin Hall.

[ulforlife]

For a long time, there were only 3 or 4 buildings on campus.

And what became the Quad was, indeed, a demo farm, and remained so for some years.

For a while, it was also the baseball field... amazing, because the batters faced the windows of Martin Hall.

Martin hall was awesome back then...