Eugene Clyde Brooks

Eugene Clyde Brooks. Image Source: The 1924 Agromeck (North Carolina State's yearbook) by the NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center.

Eugene Clyde Brooks succeeded James Yadkin Joyner (1862-1954) as state superintendent of public instruction in 1919, and in that capacity served as chair of the ECTTS board of trustees. During his tenure, 1919-1923, East Carolina transitioned from a teachers training school to a teachers college empowered academically to award bachelor’s degrees and the highest level of certification for public school teachers. With Brooks as ex officio chair, East Carolina’s new standing gained considerable support and prestige from the highest levels.

Brooks was by far the most outstanding educator to have served on the East Carolina board. As his biographer, Willard B. Gatewood (1931-2011), aptly noted, “between 1898 and 1934 [Brooks] occupied almost every rung in the educational ladder, and a striking feature of his career was the remarkable success that he achieved in each capacity… He was a teacher, principal, school superintendent in Monroe and Goldsboro, clerk in the State Department of Education, professor of education in Trinity College (now Duke University), state superintendent of public instruction, and president of North Carolina State College (now NCSU)….” Brooks was also a somewhat prolific author and helped spearhead the revival of a state-focused academic journal for educators, the North Carolina Journal of Education (later, North Carolina Education), of which he served as editor from 1906 until 1919, the year he became state superintendent of public instruction.

Brooks’ rise to prominence as an educator came when he joined the early twentieth century campaign for public education launched by Gov. Charles B. Aycock (1859-1912). At the time, literacy rates for both races were abysmal. Though committed to “universal education,” Aycock and Brooks took as their first priority the establishment of schools for white children so as to ensure, along with general education, their later qualification for the vote according to the new literacy requirement in state suffrage laws. Although part of the progressive movement, Brooks invariably worked within the system of racial segregation sanctioned by the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision of 1896 allowing for “separate but equal” facilities in public education.

As state superintendent, Brooks collaborated with ECTTS President Robert Wright to have North Carolina adopt a uniform certification plan and salary schedule giving the state more systematic control over local education. And, while Brooks never challenged segregation in public education and society at large, he devoted unprecedented time and energy to improving black schools throughout the state. Earlier, he had chaired a committee of the Trinity College Historical Society “to study the Negro in Durham,” seeking to discover the grounds for the “remarkable success” of African Americans there. Brooks also worked with the General Education Board and Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932), the philanthropist, to improve educational facilities for African Americans in North Carolina. In 1919, with his backing as state superintendent, North Carolina passed laws making possible the establishment of county high schools for African Americans. And in 1921, Brooks helped persuade the state legislature to establish within the Department of Public Instruction a Division of Negro Education with an annual appropriation of $15,000.00. Under the leadership of Nathan Carter Newbold (1871-1957), this division helped advance the growth and development of African American education in North Carolina at an unprecedented rate.

During his last year as state superintendent, Brooks worked with Dr. James E. Shepard (1875-1947) in gaining state support for the conversion of the National Training School in Durham into the Durham State Normal School for training black teachers. In 1925, with further curricular expansion the school was renamed the North Carolina College for Negroes (now, N.C. Central University), the first state-supported liberal arts college for blacks in the U.S.

While Brooks’ devotion to upgrading African American education was outstanding, it remained within the relatively limited parameters of black empowerment earlier advocated by Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), emphasizing the need for black growth and development within a sphere apart from that of white society. Nevertheless, Brooks was undoubtedly the most racially progressive educator to serve on the East Carolina board of trustees in the first half of the twentieth century.

Sources:

• Brooks, Eugene C. et al. The Study of History in the Elementary Schools: Report to the American Historical Association. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1909.
• Brooks, Eugene C. The Story of Cotton and the Development of the Cotton States. Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1911.
• Brooks, Eugene C., ed. North Carolina Poems. Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Education, 1912.
• Brooks, Eugene C. The Story of Corn and the Westward Migration. Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1916.
• Brooks, Eugene C. Woodrow Wilson as President. Chicago: Row, Peterson and Co., 1916.
• Brooks, Eugene Clyde. Stories of South America: Historical and Geographical. Richmond: Johnson Publishing Co., 1922.
• Brooks, Eugene C. and Lyman P. Powell. Education for Democracy. Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1919.
• Brooks, Eugene C. “The Relation of Education to Public Welfare: Inaugural Address of Eugene Clyde Brooks, President, North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering.” May 26, 1924. Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering, 1924.
• Eugene Clyde Brooks Papers. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Duke University. Durham, North Carolina. https://archives.lib.duke.edu/catalog/brookseugeneclyde
• Gatewood, Willard B., Jr. “Eugene Clyde Brooks and Negro Education in North Carolina, 1919-1923.” North Carolina Historical Review. Vol. 38, no. 3. July 1961. Pp. 362-379. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23517427
• Gatewood, Willard B., Jr. “Eugene Clyde Brooks: Educational Journalist in North Carolina, 1906-1923. North Carolina Historical Review. Vol. 36, no. 3. July 1959. Pp. 307-329. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23517482
• Gatewood, Willard B., Jr. Eugene Clyde Brooks: Educator and Public Servant. Durham: Duke University Press, 1960.
• Gatewood, Willard B. “Brooks, Eugene Clyde.” NCPedia. 1979. From the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, edited by William S. Powell. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979-1996. https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/brooks-eugene-clyde
• North Carolina Journal of Education. Vol. 1, no. 18. June 1, 1907. E. C. Brooks, editor. North Carolina Digital Collections. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p249901coll37/id/12156/
• Underwood, S. B. “The New Educational Leader.” Training School Quarterly. Vol. VI, no. 1. April, May, June 1919. Pp. 1-3. https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/37023

Related Materials

Image Source: Sketches of Monroe and Union County (1902), p. 61. https://archive.org/details/sketchesofmonroe00stac/page/60/mode/2up?view=theater

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