English: Biography: Bazoline Usher rose through the ranks of the Atlanta public school system to become supervisor of Black education, at the time the highest position ever held by a Black person in the field of education in Atlanta. The daughter of Lavada Smith and Joe Samuel Usher, she attended Atlanta University's Laboratory High School and graduated from the College in 1906. She then spent ten years teaching in Virginia. Returning to Atlanta, over the next forty years, Miss Usher held a series of positions of increasing importance in the school system--as teacher, assistant principal, and principal. She studied at the graduate level at the University of Chicago, and in 1938 received a master's degree in education from Atlanta University. In 1944 she was appointed supervisor of education for Blacks in the Atlanta school system, and held that position until her retirement in 1954. She then taught at Spelman College for three years. She has been active in the Friendship Baptist Church, and is one of the original members of the Uplifters Club, a fund-raising and social outreach auxiliary of the church. Other memberships include AKA and the Girl Scouts, which she and Grace Hamilton introduced to Black girls in Atlanta in 1943. She received the Bronze Woman of the Year award from Iota Phi Lambda in 1946, a scroll of honor from Fort Valley State College in 1952, and was recognized by the Uplifters Club for meritorious service to the club, the community, and the church.

Description: The Black Women Oral History Project interviewed 72 African American women between 1976 and 1981. With support from the Schlesinger Library, the project recorded a cross section of women who had made significant contributions to American society during the first half of the 20th century. Photograph taken by Judith Sedwick
Repository: Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America.
Collection: Black Women Oral History Project
Research Guide: http://guides.library.harvard.edu/schlesinger_bwohp

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