Elizabeth Jennie Adams Carter

A California based newspaper called The Monongahela published an editorial in 1881 in which it doubted black children could be educated, following a state ruling requiring communities to desegregate their schools.

The Daily Republican would reverse its opinion a decade later in an obituary, published high and center on its front page, following the untimely death of a local young black woman of great educational accomplishment for her time.

“She was a mild and gentle lady, and had many friends wherever she went,” the publisher, Chill Hazzard, stated in the story about the death of Elizabeth Jennie Adams Carter, printed just below the newspaper’s flag.

The obituary also recognized her as having been the first “colored graduate” of South-Western State Normal College, an earlier name of California University of Pennsylvania.

Carter was born a free person in Monongahela Oct. 9, 1852, to the Rev. Beverly and Eliza Jane Peters Adams Carter. Her grandparents were slaves, and her father was a barber, which was a respected profession, said Monongahela historian Terry Necciai.

She was granted a diploma July 8, 1881, and awarded a teaching certificate a week later from the California Borough college, at a time when there were few white females on campuses, according to the 2014 book, “African American Women Educators: A Critical Examination of their Pedagogies, Educational Ideas, and Activism from the 19th to mid-20th Centuries.”

But before Carter earned her degree, Hazzard had published an editorial stating there was “still a great deal of doubt about the educability of blacks,” according to the book written by a number of authors, including Karen A. Johnson.

The book theorized the editorial resulted from a July 4, 1881, ruling by the state Legislature that abolished colored schools. Hazzard went as far as to state that black children didn’t want to go to school.

“There were theories about race, and ideas were pervasive in that time about inferiority,” said Johnson, an associate professor of education and ethnic studies at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

“Her life experience was not the case,” Johnson said of Carter. “She was a fascinating character.”

She said Carter’s achievements, which included published acclaim for her public speaking skills, might have changed Hazzard’s mind regarding the way he had criticized black people. Johnson said “he might have had a change of heart.”

Carter was a teacher in a school for black children in the basement of an African Methodist Episcopal church in Monongahela from 1876 to 1879 before she went to college at age 27. She rose to the position of vice principal at a school near Brownsville before joining the faculty at Paul Quinn College in Waco, Texas, about six years after earning her degree.

Paul Quinn was founded as a private, faith-based liberal arts college in April 1872 with the purpose of educating freed slaves and their offspring, its website states.

Carter was married to John Nelson Carter, an AME minister who also attended the Normal School, and they had two children, William Beverly Burgin, and Lida Jane Carter, who died as a child, according to an article in the California Journal, a Cal U. publication.

Her failing health in 1889 brought Carter back to Pennsylvania, where she died about two years later in Beaver at age 38. The cause of her death remains unknown.

The Monongahela Valley Republican, which Hazzard also operated, dispatched a reporter to cover Carter’s funeral.

“She was a pattern that all should follow,” the reporter wrote in the story, quoting the ministers who eulogized her before she was buried in Monongahela Cemetery.

The story also mentioned that one of her pallbearers was Capt. William Catlin, a Civil War veteran from Monongahela who was known for having been among the first black members of the Pennsylvania National Guard.

Cal U. continues to memorialize Carter to this day, and it even has a dormitory named after her. Her framed diploma hangs in the multicultural center in Carter Hall.

The university also issues scholarships and awards in Carter’s name, honoring those who exemplify “her spirit, resilience and leadership.”

Observer-Reporte, "Jennie Carter Left A Legacy of Admiration, Hope at Cal U," Staff Writer, Scott Beveridge (Feb. 2019)