C. C. Hubbard

January 18, 2012

C.C. Hubbard

or

What's R-e-e-al-l-y Wrong with Education in the U.S.

     With considerable trappings in the media today regarding deficits in education (some genuine, some not so much), especially about education for the poor and minorities, I feel compelled to write  about a person most responsible for my personal success in multiple careers.  As I approach my 73rd year, I have to say that the day my mother took me to enter first grade at C.C. Hubbard Elementary School was a day that I will always remember as my educational foundation.  After executive careers in the military, with the Boeing Company, owner of a small business; a Baccalaureate in physics, a Masters Degree in Public Administration, and an Advanced Executive MBA from Peter Drucker, I find C. C. Hubbard was with me all the way.

     C. C. Hubbard was my next door neighbor, his wife, Princess, was my third grade teacher, his daughter Eulalia was my fourth grade teacher.  I graduated as President of my class in 1957 and produced the last Year Book for C.C. Hubbard High School.  He died in 1947, two years after I entered first grade, but I remember him vividly, both as a neighbor and as a fearsome principal of my school.  After his death, the school was led by men of much less stature, capabilities, conviction, and far less favorable impact upon the community. 

     In many ways, he was THE community leader.  We had our church ministers, black doctors, black businessmen, but C.C. Hubbard was the axis around which the community was formed and functioned, until his death in 1947.  C.C. (Christopher Columbus) Hubbard became principal of Lincoln School, (re-named C.C. Hubbard School in 1943), in 1906.  He was the pillar of the "Negro" or "Colored" community of our town and of the region extending for more that 50 miles in all directions from the town.  He was the principal of the school when my mother attended grade school and high school; she went on to finish college in 1929. She died in 1945.

     Because of segregation, "Colored" children from surrounding communities were bussed into our town for their education until the time "bussing" was used to integrate schools and C.C Hubbard was finally closed.  As a result, many more children than those born in our town benefitted from the impact C.C. Hubbard had on their education.

      There were eight children in my family and all of us, except for one, who suffered from partial blindness, finished college.  My dad was a laborer who was often "laid off".  Most of the students who attended Hubbard School were from families of meager means; born into a region which practiced segregation more severely than many places in the deep South.  As we learned later of Apartheid, we felt a kindred tie to the people of South Africa due to the brutal behavior of the white community in our region. 

      Professor Hubbard was able to create such strong, educated citizens for this country because he was the center of a strong, talented, industrious segregated community that strongly supported education and supported Hubbard School.  My family, and most families warned their children that the would be spanked at home if they were spanked, or otherwise disciplined at school.

For all of my school days, you could hear "a pin drop" while class was in session -- anywhere in the school.  The support of the parents and the community for the school were key to our success.  That support came directly from the ability of C.C. Hubbard to establish and maintain a thriving community focused around education.

     So, in summary, I hope you get the picture.  Parents, (from whom all students derive) did not blindly leave the education of their children to strangers.  The community did not dis-engage from the education of their children.  Funding was largely "cast-off", or "left-over" in nature from that provided for white students(a bad thing), but C.C. Hubbard produced wonders with what he received.  I'm sure the school would have had more and achieved more,  if the "Negro" community received fair value for their tax dollars.  Because of  segregation (not a good thing), class sizes were smaller than what we experience in schools today (a good thing).  Each of my teachers from first through twelfth grade were strong professionals who built my educational foundation.  I fondly remember them all.

     Today's media would have you believe that all good things came to non-white students with integration; but for me, and those fortunate enough to attend C.C. Hubbard School, integrated education in that region was a step down.  I learned this first hand when, as an ADCO and a major in the United States Air Force, a white mother and son from the white school in our town came before me in search of advice for an officer's commission .

     I think the record will show that bad things began to happen to education for all young students in this country because racial backlash was first enacted within our schools, and then to the entire country.

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