Beulah Rucker Oliver established a school for African-American children that continued in various forms until the late 1950s. Photos by: Scott Rogers
Historical Moxie
Beulah Rucker spent lifetime focused on educating others BY JOHNNY VARDEMAN
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Executive Director of the Beulah Rucker Museum Rojean Bailey.
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ewspapers lined the walls of the Banks County log cabin Beulah Rucker grew up in, daughter of former slaves who had no formal education. The “wallpaper” was an example of the poverty she endured as a child. Yet, the papers served as an inspiration to become interested in education, a lifelong love and devotion. They made her curious about the pictures and the words, some of which she began to figure out herself. One of eight children in the sharecropping family, Beulah worked hard herself helping her siblings and parents scrape by with enough food on the table and homemade clothes to wear. When she was ready for high school, her parents sent her to board in Athens. At first, she attended only one month because that was all her parents could afford. Later, she would milk cows and clean her principal’s house in the morning before school to pay her expenses. Her senior year at Knox Institute, she began to dream of a school to help blacks get an education that would lead to jobs. Despite her parents and teachers being cool to such an idea, Beulah pressed on, at the same time earning money through teaching and any other job she could pick up. Beulah’s dream of an industrial school brought her to Gainesville, where she bought a house and lot that became her first school. Students sat on wooden boxes. She appealed for community support for years before people began to take her seriously. As one of her grandchildren who attended her school, Summer 2015