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Beacons of Light: The Education of the Afro-Texan Sketch from Noted Negro Women: Their Triumphs and Activities by Monroe Alphus Majors |
| SAMPSON |
| Miss GRACE G. SAMPSON is among the brainiest young women of
the race. As a scholar she is without a peer. She is the first and only
woman who has secured a first-grade certificate from the Dallas City
public school board. Having been reared in Chicago she has enjoyed
exceptional advantages for education. After graduating from the high
school of her native city she came to Texas and accepted a position as
teacher in the Paul Quinn College. Thence she took the first- grade
examination and got the highest average per cent, ever made in Corsicana,
Texas, where she taught one year. Prof. Kealing, now president of Paul
Quinn College, Waco, Texas, hearing of the rigidness of the Dallas board
of examiners, took the examination in I888 and passed it with a very high
mark, as the boast had been made by the whites that "a nigger could
not get sufficient average." Thus Prof. Kealing exploded the doctrine
of incapacity, being the first Negro to pass the board. The remark was
made afterward that "no Negro woman could get a first-grade
certificate in Dallas." This remark was grating on Miss Sampson's
ear, hence in 1889 she went to Dallas and applied for a first-grade
certificate, to the utter surprise of the board. She was examined and
awarded the coveted certificate, and thus put an end to the doubts and
dogmas of Negro inferiority. She is at present teaching in the city
schools of the great and future metropolis, Chicago.
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