William J. Simmons (teacher)

Add links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the founder of the second Ku Klux Klan, see William Joseph Simmons.
William J. Simmons
Born(1849-06-29)June 29, 1849
Charleston, South Carolina
DiedOctober 30, 1890(1890-10-30) (aged 41)
Louisville, Kentucky
Occupation(s)Baptist pastor, educator, activist, author
Known forPresident and namesake of Simmons College of Kentucky

William J. Simmons (June 29, 1849 – October 30, 1890) was an American Baptist pastor, educator, author, and activist. He was formerly enslaved person, who became the second president of Simmons College of Kentucky (1880–1890), for whom the school was later named.

Simmons greatly developed

National Baptist Convention, USA. He was elected president of the Colored Press Association for his work as editor of the American Baptist, a newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky. Simmons was also the author of Men of Mark
(1877), an anthology of 177 short biographies of notable African American men.

Early life and education

Rev. Dr. William J. Simmons was born into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina, to Edward and Esther Simmons on June 29, 1849. When Simmons was young, his mother fled slavery with her three children, William and his two sisters, Emeline and Anna.

They initially settled in

Chester, Pennsylvania, before ultimately settling in Bordentown, New Jersey. Tardiff had received an education from Bishop Daniel Payne and undertook to give Simmons and his siblings an education on that basis.[1]

Career

American Civil War & Hillsdale School

From 1862 to 1864, Simmons served as an

surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee
.

After the war, Simmons returned to dentistry. In 1867, he became a

Washington D.C..[1] At Hillsdale, he boarded with the poet Solomon G. Brown.[3] After graduating, Simmons moved to Arkansas to become a teacher on the advice of Horace Greeley, but returned to Hillsdale soon after. He remained at Hillsdale until June 1874.[1]

Howard Academy & Simmons College of Kentucky

In the summer of 1875, Simmons married Josephine A. Silence on August 25, 1874, and moved to

county clerk and county commissioner. He campaigned for the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes
. He served there until 1879.

Simmons was

ordained in 1879 and moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he pastored the First Baptist Church. The following year, he became the second president of the Kentucky Normal and Theological Institute, which he worked for a decade.[1] The school was eventually renamed the State University of Louisville, and later to Simmons College of Kentucky after Simmons due to schools progression under his tenure. In 1894, he was succeeded as Simmons College president by Charles L. Purce.[4]

Politics and activism

In Kentucky, Simmons was elected for several years the chairman of the State Convention of Colored Men. On September 29, 1882, he was elected editor of the journal the American Baptist, in which he criticized the failures of both the Republican and

civil rights
. He was also president of the American Baptist Company.

In 1886, Simmons was elected over

1884 World's Fair in New Orleans. In 1886, he organized and was elected president of the American National Baptist Convention.[1] The convention was a call for African American Baptist unity and was also led by Richard DeBaptiste and featured notable presentations by Solomon T. Clanton and James T. White.[5] In 1889 in Indianapolis, Simmons was a leader at the American National Baptist Convention and wrote a resolution to provide aid for blacks fleeing violence in the South and moving to the North.[6]

Awards

Simmons received an honorary master's degree from Howard University in 1881 and an honorary doctorate degree from Wilberforce University in 1885.[1]

In 1887, he published a book entitled

Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising
, which highlights the lives of 172 prominent African American men, while serving as the school's president. He was working on a sister edition of the title that would highlight the lives and accomplishments of prominent pre-1900 African American women, but died before its completion.

Death and legacy

Simmons died on October 30, 1890, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Starting in 1891, he was the namesake of the Simmons Colored School in The Ville neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri.[7]

Bibliography

  • Albert Witherspoon Pegues (1892). "William J. Simmons". Our Baptist Ministers and Schools. Willey & Company. pp. 439–.
  • Rev William J. Simmons (1887). Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising. G. M. Rewell & Company.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Simmons, Rev. William J. (1887). Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive, and Rising. Cleveland, Ohio: Geo. M. Rewell & Co. pp. 39–63.
  2. ^ "Compiled Military Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served with the United States Colored Troops: Infantry Organizations, 41st through 46th", The National Archives, Publication Number: M1994, National Archives Catalog ID: 300398, Roll: 0013, access on fold3 on August 16, 2016
  3. ^ Louise Daniel Hutchinson and Gail Sylvia Lowe (1983). "Solomon G. Brown:A Renaissance Man". Kind Regards of S.G. Brown: Selected Poems of Solomon G. Brown (PDF). Washington D.C.: Anacostia Neighborhood Museum of the Smithsonian Institution by the Smithsonian Press. pp. 3–5.
  4. ^ Richings, G. F. Evidences of progress among colored people. GF Ferguson, 1903. p. 57–59
  5. ^ Washington, James Melvin, The Making of a Church with the Soul of a Nation, 1880–1889, in eds West, Cornel, and Eddie S. Glaude, eds. African American religious thought: An anthology. Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. p419
  6. ^ "Baptists Advocate an Exodus", The Indianapolis News (Indianapolis, Indiana) September 19, 1899, p. 1, accessed October 12, 2016
  7. ^ "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Simmons Colored School" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved October 30, 2023. With accompanying pictures

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_J._Simmons_(teacher)&oldid=1218229495"