12/24/2023
When black students were forced out of the Salem public schools in 1835 by the school committee. A rememberence by one of the students named Sarah Parker Remond. The daughter of merchant, John Remond and Nancy Lenox.
Sarah Parker Remond (6 June 1826 - 13 December, 1894), abolitionist, physician, and feminist, she was born in Salem, Massachusetts.
From African American Lives, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Evelyn Brooks HigginBotham
Oxford University Press 2004.
“One morning, about an hour before the usual time for dismissing the pupils, the teacher informed us that we could no longer be per- mitted to attend the school, that he had received orders from the (school) committee to give us this information, and added, I wish to accompany you home, as I wish to converse with your parents upon the matter.' Some of the pupils seemed indignant, and two expressed much sympathy. I had no words for any one; I only wept bitter tears; then, in a few minutes, I thought of the great injustice practised upon me, and longed for some power to help me to crush those who thus robbed me
of my personal rights. " Years have elapsed since this occurred, but the memory of it is as fresh as ever in my mind, and like the scarlet letter of Hester, is engraven on my heart. We had been expelled from the school on the sole ground of our complexion. The teacher walked home with us, held & long conversation with our parents, said he was pained by the course taken by the school committee, but added
it was owing to the prejudice against colour which existed in the community. He also said we were among his best pupils, for good lessons, punctuality, &c. Add to this the fact that my father was a tax-payer for years before I was born, and it will need no extra clear vision to perceive that American prejudice against free-born men and
women is as deep-rooted as it is hateful and cruel. " In such a community, it is always easy to call forth this feeling as the occasion may require. It is always to be felt in a greater or less degree. Our parents decided we should not enter an inferior exclusive public school, and in a short time our whole family removed to Newport, Rhode Island. Here we met the same difficulty. The schools would not receive coloured pupils. Large fortunes were formerly made by the foreign slave trade in this town, and, if report was true, the chains worn by some of the wretched victims of that inhuman traffic could still be seen in the cellars of some of the houses of the elder citizens.”
Dr. Sarah Parker Remond
From, Our exemplars, poor and rich; or
Biographical sketches of men and women who have, by an extraordinary use of their opportunities, benefited their fellow-creatures.
Edited by
Matthew Davenport Hill
London:
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.
1861
