The Christian Bible contains a story of a woman named Ruth. Ruth was a Moabite who was married to an Israelite man. When her Moabite husband died, Ruth’s mother-in-law encouraged her to return to her own Moabite people because she was still young and could find a new husband and remain in the culture with which she was familiar. However, Ruth had a spirit of fierce devotion and chose to remain with her mother-in-law, Naomi, and to live among Naomi’s Israelite relatives. Ruth was later rewarded for her labor of love with a handsome Israelite husband, but it is hard to imagine what a risk she was taking in staying with her mother-in-law, especially as a widowed woman in ancient times. It is hard to fathom Ruth’s courage, loyalty, and care for those around her. (Ruth, ESV Study Bible)
Jane Edna Hunter, founder of the Phillis Wheatley Association, however, offers a relatively modern-day illustration of the character of Ruth. George A. Bellamy, the author of the introduction of Hunter’s autobiography says, “Step by step Miss Hunter has tried to right a wrong in the social fabric. By patient understanding she has fearlessly and undauntedly kept true to her ideal. With the same fortitude which characterized Jane Addams and Dr. Graham Taylor and other pioneers in the settlement movement, she has held to her purpose through the trials and vicissitudes of a changing world.” (Hunter, p. 27)
The purpose of this paper will be to examine the life, works, and social philosophy of Hunter to compare it to the character of Ruth as well as to examine Hunter’s organization, the Phillis Wheatley Association, both in an historic and modern context.
Jane Edna Hunter was born on December 13, 1882 in Pendleton, South Carolina on her parents’ sharecropping farm on the Woodburn Plantation Farm. Hunter attended the Ferguson and Williams Academy through the eighth grade and then began working as a domestic servant. Hunter’s loyal personality was highlighted early in life. She says in her own autobiography, A Penny and a Prayer, that she was extremely devoted to her father. She says, “It is often stated that such situations exert a lasting influence upon later life; and I have never doubted that my life was shaped by this initial pattern of conflict with Mother and unswerving loyalty to Father.” (Hunter, p. 32)
After Hunter’s father died in her tenth year of life, she worked for diverse white families as a household servant and caregiver for children. Some of her employers were kind to her and others sorely mistreated her. After attending a year of college and practicing nursing for a few years, Hunter travelled with some friends by train to Cleveland. She arrived in Cleveland in 1905 with nothing but her “faith in God and hope for the future.” (Hunter, p. 68)
Hunter experienced firsthand the difficulties that faced a young, single black girl without a network of family or friends in her new city. One night, when she chanced to visit a “dancing hall,” she was warned that she was in the wrong place for an honest girl. She had found herself in a place frequented by the infamous “Starlight,” and she was encouraged to move to a safer and more respectable neighborhood. (Hunter, p. 80)
However, she realized that the more respectable neighborhood came with a more significant price tag. When Hunter examined the dilemma she had found herself in and knew other girls like her were facing, she saw no other option than to address the issue herself. Therefore, in 1911, Hunter, out of the altruistic outflow of her heart, began the Phillis Wheatley Association. Her original intention for the Phillis Wheatley Association was to address the issues that faced working Negro girls in Cleveland by providing them with “pure and pleasant surroundings when out of employment; a place where they be taught the art of housekeeping, the technics of hygiene, the beauty in personal neatness, the importance of loyalty,” and more. (Hunter, p. 89)
Hunter chose the name “Phillis Wheatley” intentionally. The Association’s own website explains that Phillis Wheatley was born in 1753 in Africa, kidnapped, and brought to America. Her new owners taught her to read and write and even foreign languages like Latin. Phillis took to writing poetry, and her work became so popular that she appeared before George Washington in 1776. (The Phillis Wheatley Association, 2018) As the first African American to publish a book and to be an accomplished woman of letters, Hunter deemed her a fitting namesake for her establishment.
An interesting anecdote that displays the care of both Hunter and the Phillis Wheatley Association for the immediate Cleveland community is the story of “Starlight” Boyd. As it will be remembered, Hunter encountered this suave and shameless man early in her years in Cleveland. As it happened, his false promises to many African American girls gained him considerable wealth and sway in the community. Many more honorable community members chose to turn a blind eye to his proceedings at first, because they thought his acts did not concern them. However, when so many prostitute houses and brothels began to appear around the city that even the upper class black citizens could not ignore it, other members of the community such as St. John’s A.M.E. Church and the Antioch Baptist Church began to partner with Jane Edna Hunter to combat the evil she had foreseen. These institutions were particularly apt allies. According to Kusmer, “…these congregations (especially those of the Baptist denomination) generally reflected the religious aspirations of the typical urban black.” (Kusmer, p. 95) In this case, the black community in Cleveland was able to forge a stronger bond as its “common man” fought for its “common man.” Although their combined efforts were not enough to overturn Starlight’s position of political power at the time, Hunter outsmarted the wily man several times and in the end, was able to protect her boarders. (Hunter, p. 110)
Not only does this episode demonstrate Hunter’s moral standards and the significant partnership of multiple black Cleveland institutions of the time, but it also reveals her orientation concerning the tertiary levels of Black consciousness. Hunter acted defensively by protecting “her girls” and providing safe places for them to dance and have fun in the evenings, but she did not stop there. She took on an offensive position in her confrontation of Starlight and open advocacy that he be removed from office. Hunter herself admits this in her own writing, but she also says, earlier in her autobiography, “Opposition of this kind, motivated by a fear of segregation, we have had to meet all along the way. It is of two kinds – the unintelligent and somewhat snobbish dislike of that which seems to isolate the life of the colored population from that of the white man; and the genuine and sincere distrust of all that seems to set apart the industrial and economic life of the Negro. My belief, as I shall show in a later chapter, is that the Negro must develop race pride and enterprise, and continue to make his own contribution to the world – as a Negro. As for those who, from motives and prejudice, criticize my stand in this matter, I have found it wise simply to preserve silence – following in this the example of Booker T. Washington. ‘I have made it a rule,’ he said, ‘never to answer my critics.’ Withdrawal, I, too, have found, is the best weapon against the attacks of prejudice.” (Hunter, p.85)
Therefore, it seems that Hunter preferred to identify herself with the compromise/accommodation tertiary level of Black consciousness. According to her own words, she tried to emulate Booker T. Washington, who was a staunch accommodationist. However, Jane Edna Hunter’s actions seem to reveal a different perspective in practice. When she acts out to make a social change as she did in the previous anecdote, she takes on more of an integration/assimilation position. This duality is not unprecedented. As Kusmer says, “Not all black leaders, of course, identified themselves with one position or the other. Many (including even one of the two chief protagonists, Du Bois) held inconsistent views on specific issues or changed their allegiance over the course of time.” (Kusmer, p.114)
Furthermore, Hunter uses her autobiography as a platform to let people know what else needed to be changed in the Black community in Cleveland at the time she wrote the book. She explains that, while there was one standard of living in the United States at the time, there were two standards of social justice. She interacts with these inter-cultural issues by explaining that while the Negro and the white man have the same expenses and responsibilities, the Negro receives only a third of the income of a white man. She extolled labor unions for their measurable impact on equalizing wages in 20th century Cleveland and even worked to raise awareness about this issue and create change in the area of wages between black and white workers. Her commitment to equality and her activism in carrying out her ideas reveals that she truly did operate under the integration/assimilation position of the tertiary levels of consciousness more than she did the compromise/accommodation.
Charles Chesnutt, one of the financial backers of the Phillis Wheatley Association, saw things differently than did Jane Edna Hunter. He represents the other side of the theoretical coin because he believed in an integration/assimilation position but accepted the state of compromise/accommodation that seemed necessary during his lifetime. Kusmer says, “Chesnutt did not abandon the ideal of an integrated society; but he now recognized that in the United States this ideal was not going to be even partially realized for many years to come. As segregation and discrimination reached new levels of intensity after 1915, he came to see the validity of separate black institutions like the Phillis Wheatley Association. This acceptance by Chesnutt…was more pragmatic than philosophical.” (Kusmer, p. 240) It is interesting to note the different approach of black leaders who were contemporaries and who ended in the same place, but who came with such different philosophical ideals. This truly represents the essence of the idea of double consciousness within the black community.
The idea of double consciousness and intra-cultural communication applies to the struggles faced by the PWA as it grew in size and popularity. Hunter and her partners met with more and more opposition, and this time, it was mostly from their fellow African Americans. The “old elite” party of black Clevelanders saw Hunter’s efforts to help black working-class girls as supportive of segregation. Kenneth Kusmer records a statement from an old elite, upper class black woman who, as he says, showed her naiveté of the actual discrimination the average Negro faced at this time. The woman said, “We call on the white people, and the white people call on us. Now that the more intelligent of us have broken down the barriers between the races, you are trying to build them up again with your absurd Southern ideas for working girls.” (Kusmer, p. 150)
The same way Hunter and her allies overcame the attacks of “Starlight,” they were able to gradually overcome their upper-class critics. By 1916, 170 working-class girls lived in the Phillis Wheatley House annually along with many others who took advantage of its facilities. (Kusmer, p. 151)
According to Cleveland Historical, the Phillis Wheatley Association, while it remained committed to the same vein of care for the community as Hunter intentioned, gradually grew to encompass care for all kinds of African Americans in its community, and not just young women. It says, “The Emeritus House became a widely used community center and a prime spot for social gatherings. The Association also began programs and services especially designed to appeal to youngsters and the elderly.” (The Cleveland Historical, 2018)
Today, the Phillis Wheatley Association carries on the legacy of its founder. Its mission is “to strengthen and empower individuals and families to succeed and build a thriving community free from poverty by creating hope, opportunity, and action.” The organization says that it will meet this goal by hosting programs and services to specifically address educational success and income building. (The Phillis Wheatley Association, 2018)
The PWA operates out of an apartment building on Cedar Avenue in Cleveland. The building is located in Cleveland’s emerging MidTown area, the district between Downtown and the University Circle area. The building offers apartment-style living for seniors, houses the Josephine Kohler Youth Enrichment Learning Center, and venues for meals, community events, and music and dancing lessons.
The PWA offers such events as free produce markets, bingo nights, group and individual music lessons, and an annual golf outing. One of its annual highlights is Camp Mueller, which allows inner-city children the opportunity to go away to camp in the country during the summer, where they are able to enjoy the great outdoors, do science projects, and be free to run and play.
The contemporary version of the Phillis Wheatley Association caters to men, women, and children alike, but retains the spirit of support for African Americans in Cleveland that Jane Edna Hunter envisioned. A particular social issue addressed at length by the PWA that deserves to be highlighted is that of inner-city children who have stepped out of line or become delinquent as a result of a lack of attention, resources, or engagement in their education.
The PWA has designated four key values on its website: community, cooperation, compassion, and commitment. It is commitment that is most important in the particular social issue at hand: that of children who often lack people in their lives who are truly committed to them. Either because a child’s parents must both work full time, the child is living in a single-parent home, the child’s teachers do not have faith in his or her success, or a variety of other factors, these children may begin to create disruption in their communities as they search for meaning, attention, or even just express their frustration. Of course, this is not the case with all children of this demographic, but it is not an uncommon issue.
It is also an issue that has historic roots in Cleveland, as well as many other cities around the United States. Kenneth Kusmer writes of the inequality between the predominantly black high schools and predominantly white high schools as far back as the 1910s. He says of Charles Chesnutt’s mulatto-skinned daughters, “When the Senior Class was organized, and its activities under way, they realized with shock and confusion that they were considered different from their classmates; they were being gently but firmly set apart, and had become self-conscious about it.” (Kusmer, p. 62) This “setting-apart” has only increased since the high school days of Chesnutt’s daughters, and it has resulted in significant educational inequalities.
In the Public Broadcasting System’s video, “The Two Nations of Black America,” the narrator interviews a young black man named Mark. Mark says, “I can tell you, I’m not stupid. I got a problem though, a problem I can’t solve because you don’t help, and he don’t help, and he don’t help.” (The Two Nations of Black America, 1998) It seems that many of these children grow up understanding that they’ve been treated differently and longing for teachers, parents, and leaders who will pour into them academically and emotionally.
The PWA works to address this social issue by providing a stable environment for these children. It offers several programs to fully engage the children of its community and thus make them feel loved and important.
One of the largest of these opportunities is the Josephine Kohler Youth Enrichment Learning Center. The Learning Center is located on Cedar Avenue in Cleveland and offers its own sub-programs such as field trips, summer day camp, USDA approved meals, and an offering called the “21st Century Program.” The Day Care Center is equipped to provide programming and care for 108 children throughout the year. Babies and toddlers from 18 months to 5 years old can be enrolled as part of the full-day daycare program, where they will be cared for by licensed and caring staff and prepared for school in areas like reading, arts and crafts, music classes, and physical activity. Children from 6 to 12 years can attend after-school programs, the most relevant of which is the 21st Century Program.
As the PWA website itself says, “This program supports the creation of community learning centers that provide academic enrichment opportunities during non-school hours for children, particularly students who attend high-poverty and low-performing schools. The program helps students meet state and local student standards in core academic subjects, such as reading and math; offers students a broad array of enrichment activities that can complement their regular academic programs; and offers literacy and other educational services to the families of participating children.” (Phillis Wheatley Association, 2018) In other words, the PWA’s Youth Enrichment Learning Center provides children with the kind of commitment and one-on-one care they may lack so that they can be truly successful.
The Josephine Kohler Youth Enrichment Center offers students the opportunity to participate in the 21st Century Program, but the Program is actually part of a larger state-wide initiative meant to address the issue of children not meeting educational standards in inner-city or lower-income areas. The PWA partnered with the Greater Cleveland Neighborhood Center Association to bring this program to Cedar Avenue, and the district as a whole received $400,000 in funding from the state of Ohio for the 2018 fiscal year. (Ohio Department of Education, 2018)
Furthermore, recent research by the National Afterschool Alliance, students who participate in the 21st Century Program are 20 percent less likely to drop out of school. Of the school principals included in the study, 45% reported that the 21st Century Programs increased the children’s attendance at school events. Lastly, in neighborhoods that offered this program, it was noted that juvenile arrest after school hours were down 13.1%. Clearly, programs like this make a tangible difference in their communities, and the Phillis Wheatley Association is faithful to Jane Edna Hunter’s vision for the organization in continuing to offer such programs.
The Phillis Wheatley Association continues to work to make decisions to ensure sustainability, and this is especially evident through its choice of board members.
Cleveland is not the only city to have taken on this kind of care for its community, especially through outreach and educational support to children from disadvantaged African American neighborhoods. The Boys and Girls Club of Columbus, Ohio aims to make a similar impact. Interestingly, the club began as the “Westside Boys Club,” and its purpose was originally to provide a safe haven for boys from disadvantaged, often African-American communities. In the same way that the Phillis Wheatley Association was founded as a home for girls, so the Boys and Girls Club of Columbus was founded as a home for boys. While the BGCC has not expanded to provide services to adults and elderly citizens as well as has the PWA, its care for children parallels that of its Cleveland counterpart.
The Boys and Girls Club of Columbus offers a wide array of programming and facilities specifically for the same demographic as the PWA, and it reports on its website that “older teens with an optimal Club experience are 40% more likely to be on-track to graduate from high school.” (The Boys and Girls Club of Columbus, 2018) The BGCC also offers the 21st Century Program to its members.
The Phillis Wheatley Association in Cleveland works to ensure sustainability by making sure that qualified individuals who will make the best decisions for the organization are chosen to lead. For example, Thomas Harrington, the President of the Board, has had past experience in the Financial Services Industry and the Insurance Industry. He also has specific experience in Retirement Planning. These backgrounds show that he is well-equipped to oversee the financial status of the organization to guarantee that it remains viable. His experience in Retirement Planning is especially valuable for an organization like the PWA because many of its patrons are retirees or senior-aged citizens. (The Phillis Wheatley Association, 2018)
Furthermore, sustainability for organizations such as the Phillis Wheatley Association will be ensured by the interest in leadership of the next generation. Current Cleveland State University Student Mary Nozak, who is about to change her major to Communications and Political Science, has expressed an interest in working for a Cleveland nonprofit humanitarian organization such as the PWA. She would like to be the Program Director for just such an organization. She says, “I don’t know exactly where I’d like to be yet, but I know I want to be in a position where I can help people who might have been forgotten by society as a whole.” (Nozak, Mary, Personal Communication) Nozak’s prospects for this kind of position at the PWA are not specifically outlined in a way that is publically accessible, but according to a local salary forecaster, a Program Director or President of a Board for a nonprofit organization in Cleveland can expect to earn around $104,021 annually, not including benefits or bonuses. (
In conclusion, the Phillis Wheatley Association successfully continues to carry on the memory of its heroic founder, Jane Edna Hunter. Hunter was a woman with a simultaneously fierce and gentle spirit whose efforts to create a safe place for Negro girls have been integral to their survival in a racist society. Her loyal and loving character reflected that of the biblical character of Ruth, and her impact on society will not be forgotten.