PRESIDENT R. S. LOVINGGOOD

        The story of Samuel Huston College can never be told apart from that of President Lovinggood. He was born in South Carolina, in 1864. He used to speak of himself as a "mountain black." He learned his alphabet at the age of twelve years from a blue-backed speller in the Sunday school conducted in a little log Methodist Episcopal church. All his college preparatory work was done in this Sunday school. In 1881 he entered the elementary department of Clark University. He graduated from the classical course of Clark in 1890. For two years he published a weekly newspaper in Atlanta. He sold his interest in the paper, and became principal of a city school in Birmingham. In 1895 he was elected to the chair of Greek and Latin at Wiley University. There he stayed until he came to open Samuel Huston College in 1900. Weakened in body, he was obliged to give the strictest attention to diet, sleep, and special exercises. In spite of this limitation he was able to do a prodigious amount of work up until the time of his death in 1916, at the age of fifty-three. How well he lived is partly expressed in the words which were spoken of him at the time of his death:

        He was kind. He was good. He was fatherly. So many things have been left to remind us of him. He was a dreamer who dreamed dreams, and worked them out for the benefit of others. His joy was in seeing others' lives unfold. To him sacrifice was a pleasure. He lived for others; he died for others. Greater love hath no man than this. In him was love and his love was a cloak to all humanity. He loved mankind -- but he had a double love for the black boys and girls of his race.
        Colonel E. M. House, who has perhaps never been accused of extravagant language, said of him: "He is one of the greatest educators of his race." President Lovinggood was not given to complaining of the limitations placed upon his race, but on one occasion at least he said:

        When I went away to school I was taught that God is our Father. I was taught to pray, "Our Father, who art in heaven." I was taught that God is no respecter of persons, that he hath made of one blood all nations. I was taught that our country guaranteed to every one the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I learned the famous words, "Give me liberty or give me death."

        Now I obey the laws; I love my neighbors; I pay my taxes; I preach the gospel of good will and usefulness; I turn the other cheek. I begged twice to be permitted to join the army. I would die for Old Glory.

        But I find with that noble Southern white man, ex-Congressman W. H. Fleming, that "Taxation without representation is unjust -- except as to Negroes; equal rights to all and special privileges to none is a good doctrine -- except as to Negroes; all men are created free and equal -- except as to Negroes; this is a government of the people and by the people -- except as to Negroes."

        I am taxed, but I cannot vote.

        I was in a Northern city, a stranger and hungry. I had money. There was an abundance of food, but I was compelled to feast on a box of crackers and a piece of cheese. I did not ask to eat with white people, but I did ask to eat.

        I was traveling, I got off at a station almost starved. I begged a restaurant-keeper to put a lunch in a sack and to sell it to me out of the window. He refused. I was compelled to ride another hundred miles before I could get a sandwich.

        And then he added, "It is true that I feel a kind of soul aristocracy, which is unruffled by many discriminations and annoyances."

Sketch from Methodist Adventures in Negro Education:

an entry in the online

Who's who in American Methodism
By Carl Fowler Price
Published 1916