User:Uziyahu81/sandbox/Rosa J. Young

Rosa J. Young (1899-1971) was a Lutheran missionary in rural Alabama in the first half of the 20th century. She worked for the Mission Board of the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, and she helped to found several schools beginning with Rosebud Literary and Industrial School in Rosebud, Alabama. After years of missionary work, she taught at Alabama Lutheran Academy, whose name was changed to Concordia College Selma, from 1946 until 1961 when poor health limited her work. She received an honorary doctorate from Concordia Theological Seminary the same year. She died in 1971, and she is buried at Christ Lutheran Church in Rosebud.

Early Life
Young was born as the 4th of 10 children on May 14, 1890 to Grant and Nancy Young. Her father was an African-American Methodist pastor for 20 years. She grew up in a log hut on a plot of land owned by her grandfather. From an early age, Young knew that she would be a teacher, and she told the people she knew often. Young's early education came from her home and her relatives. She learned from a spelling book at home as a young child before attending formal school for the first time. Her first day of school, taught by Brice Hines, Young demonstrated advanced learning in reading, and her teacher moved her to a class with older students. It is unknown whether Young continued to attend school, but much of her education continued at night with her uncle, Mitchell Young. Young's only textbook was the Bible, and she read it often. It is unknown how old Young was when she returned to school, but it is known that she began in the 5th grade under Prof. D. L. House.

In addition to her schooling, Young worked hard on her family's farm. She rose early in the morning to work in the fields, changed her clothes for school, and attended class. After her classes, she returned to field work with her family. Young soon began to teacher her family, many of whom did not attend school. Her brother, Sheffield Lorenz, took classes with her until he attended Snow Hill Institute, where he began in the 7th grade. During this time, Young suffered from rheumatism, which immobilized her for 8 weeks. After she recovered, she continued to walk with a crutch for over a year. When she returned to good health, the family's friends and neighbors encouraged her parents to send her to high school so she could continue her education.

Young attended Payne University, which offered a high school course, in Selma, Alabama. She had no place to live while attending high school, so she wrote Ellen Hunt, an old friend of her father's. Hunt secured a boarding place with Nathan and Fanny Pullum. Young faced many challenges at Payne. Because she grew up in rural Alabama, she life in the city was unfamiliar to her, and the students made fun of her. She had to leave her first year two months before the end because of conditions at home. In the fall, she worked on a local farm to raise enough money to return to Payne University. She returned one month after classes had started.

These years were challenging for many reasons. Young's family could not afford to support her, so she worked hard in the summers to save enough to pay for books and housing. Her housing conditions were often unsure, and she would sometimes go hungry. While at Payne, she helped found three societies to which she was elected president four consecutive years, The Allen Society, The Loyal Temperance League, and the Payne Literary Society. Her senior year, she was a Sunday school teacher at Brown's Chapel, A. M. E Church, president of the previously mentioned societies, editor of the Payne Sentinel, and class president. She graduated as the valedictorian on June 1st, 1909, and she gave an address entitled, "Serve The People," in which she encouraged her audience to use the gifts God had given them to serve others.

Religious Upbringing
As the child of a Methodist minister, Young was taught about Christianity from a young age, and Her mother taught her Christian prayers, hymns, and rhymes. Until she was 10 years old, she stayed home with the younger children while her parents and older siblings went to church and Sunday school. The first Sunday she attended a church service, the pastor's sermon struck her deeply. She felt as if she were the only had disobeyed God's will. That night she wept into her pillow and prayed the Lord's Prayer. The next day, she said that the Holy Ghost had filled her, and she exclaimed to her siblings, "I have got religion. My sins are forgiven." Young had to wait before she could attend church again, and she prayed that her mother would take her. When the time came, was baptized into the African Methodist Church in 1900, at 10 years old. After that, she attended church and Sunday school on a regular basis.

Early Career
Rosa Young began her teaching career while she was still attending Payne University. She started a private summer school in Rosebud Methodist Church until she returned to class in the fall.

Conditions in Segregated Alabama Schools
After she graduated from Payne University, Young taught in public schools in Alabama, but the state of those schools was deplorable. According to Young, the school terms were usually short, only three or four months of the year, and the teachers were paid very little. The few teachers they could find were woefully unprepared and unsupported. Many teachers had to study their subject at the same time as the students. The schools did not provide a curriculum, so teachers had to develop their own course of study and find their own books. Many taught students using whatever books they could find. There were few school buildings, and most schools were held in churches. The churches, themselves, were often dilapidated, and the classes were left exposed to the elements. Only some schools had heating stoves, but the smoke frequently drove the students away from the fire. Equipment was scarce, so teachers had to use whatever they could scrounge together. Brooms were made out of pine trees or broom sage. Boxes, blocks, or wagon parts were used as seats. The floors were dirty, and they were often covered with rags that invited disease. The children faced difficult conditions, too. The children were poor. They lacked appropriate clothing, were often hungry, and their parents neglected their hygiene. Most of the children did not receive an adequate education, even though the teachers passed them on to the next grade. Young reported that many teenage students could not read the first reading lesson in the primers.

Public School Career
When Young began teaching, many schools were vacant, because many of the teachers in African-American schools could not pass the state certification exam. Should a school be unable to function for a year, many counties would withdraw the public funds to go to a local white school. Young offered to teach in as many of these vacant public schools as she could to help them retain their meager funding. She taught a summer school in Pliny Woods, which she began on June 7th, 1909. The first day she had only 2 students, but the class grew to 45 by the close of the summer. The school in Pliny Woods closed in the last week of September, and then she began teaching at a school in Pine Grove, Alabama on the first week in October. While she was there, she received assistance from the community to build a school building. She closed the school term in Pine Grove in December, and returned to Pliny Woods in the beginning of February. Young returned to the school in Pliny Woods in the beginning of February, and attendance grew to more than 100 students. After the term in Pliny Woods closed in May, she left to teach summer school in her hometown of Rosebud from June until September. In the beginning of October, she taught at in Fulton, Clark County, Alabama.

After leaving Fulton, Young went to Mulberry, in Autauga County, at which she taught for 4 months in the spring of 1911. That summer, she returned to Rosebud to teach summer school. In the fall, she was appointed the "lady principal" in Fairview Industrial School at Dothan, Alabama. She served there until Christmas when she resigned over the principal's conduct with the girls at the school. As she returned home, she met R. J. Davis, who asked her to teach the spring term at Nichburg, Alabama, which she began in the spring of 1912.

Rosebud Literary and Industrial School
In the spring of 1912, while she was teaching in Nichburg, Rosa Young decided to found a school to offer better conditions to the African-American students in rural Alabama.