Zhang: Learning By Doing at Hungerford School

In Learning by Doing in the Segregated South: The Robert Hungerford Normal and Industrial School for African Americans in Central Florida, author Wenxian Zhang (Archives & Special Collections, Rollins College) provides a detailed look at the history and impact of the Robert Hungerford Normal and Industrial School in rural Florida. Through a detailed, archival case study of the history of the Hungerford School, Zhang recounts one important chapter in the wider history of African American education from Reconstruction to today.

Influenced by the political philosophy of Booker T. Washington, the Hungerford School was developed during the late 19th Century with an emphasis on “economic self-help and individual advancement for African Americans” via vocational skills training. In the Jim Crow South, African American youth otherwise faced numerous barriers to education.

Zhang details how, for over fifty years in the segregated South, Hungerford became “a cornerstone of the community and served the educational needs of African American youths in Central Florida.” According to Zhang, Hungerford succeeded for a time by emphasizing vocational skills. Situated in a rural area, the school allowed students to gain direct experience working in a variety of vocations, specifically ones based in agriculture. On-site job opportunities also allowed students who could not otherwise afford tuition to work to offset education costs, and products and income from student workers otherwise helped fund the school.

Ultimately, however, Zhang also documents how ongoing disenfranchisement of African Americans led to greater civil rights activism and a recognition that public schools must serve all students, including African American students, better. In the early 1950s, after some protest and conflict, Hungerford converted to a public high school.

The story of Hungerford School is complicated, reflecting both a difficult history of racialized exclusion and, according to Zhang, an ongoing memory and emblem of “Black pride and hope in the historic African American community of Eatonville, Florida.”