Introduction
Ever since I put out my piece on Arthur DeWitty earlier this year, I’ve gotten into a bit of a habit of Googling places named after people whose names I don’t recognize. As it turns out, these buildings, parks, schools, centers, etc. are named after some pretty remarkable people. A good example of this would be Akins High School - it’s a school in South Austin named after Charles Akins, a career educator who worked when Austin was in the middle of a complicated, controversial school desegregation process.
This led me to the realization that I had no idea who my middle school was named after. I attended school there for three years and lived in the area for seventeen, but gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you anything about who the school was named after.
As it turns out, there’s a good reason I didn’t know anything about who the school was named after - nobody does. On the official Austin Independent School District website, the only information says that the school was named after an “African-American educator, writer, editor and activist in Austin in the 19th century.” This very brief description is more or less what you’re gonna find anywhere else online. The Texas State Historical Association gives the most comprehensive breakdown, but as I discovered during my research, much of their information is wrong.
This article is the first portion of a two part series I’m doing on Kealing Middle School. In this first article, I’m documenting the life of H.T. Kealing, the man the school was named after. The more I learned about him, the more fascinating he became - this man is integral to Austin’s history and we know nothing about him. What I’ve put together here is (as far as I can tell), the most detailed, complete account of H.T. Kealing’s life that exists.
In the second part of this series, I’m going to document the equally fascinating history of the school itself and analyze its current status - if that sounds vague now, it’ll make more sense later.
Before I begin, I want to say this - H.T. Kealing was born a long, long time ago. Like, he was born before slavery was outlawed in the United States. This only makes his journey and life accomplishments as a black man during Reconstruction that much more impressive. But it also makes much of this information either incredibly difficult or impossible to be 100% sure about. The handful of reliable resources that do exist tend to conflict on major details about Kealing’s life.
Here are a few examples of information about Kealing that differ between sources: his birthplace, the year he was born, the year he died, his name. Yes, I found a case where one source from the Austin History Museum disagrees on what H.T. Kealing’s first name was. Most of these conflicts, I was able to sort out. For the rest, I used my best judgement. That said, there are some gaps in his story that seem to be lost to time.
The final product is a (mostly) cohesive timeline of an incredible man who devoted his life to a black community recovering from the most shameful part of American history.
Dr. H.T. Kealing
Born in 1859 in Austin, Texas, Hightower Theodore Kealing was raised as the son of former slaves. This made H.T. Kealing part of the first generation of blacks to attend school in the United States. After completing high school, Kealing enrolled in Straight University in New Orleans. While in New Orleans, Kealing was converted and joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1875 - a decision that would greatly impact the rest of his life.
In 1869, American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church and the Freedmen’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church founded Straight University - one of Louisiana’s first colleges designed specifically for former slaves. In 1935, Straight was combined with New Orleans University to form Dillard University - a university with about 1,200 students still in operation today.
Now, this is where some of the information gets a little fuzzy - there is a gap in time here that I haven’t been able to find an explanation for. At some point between the mid 1870s to the late 1870s, H.T Kealing finished his studies at Straight University and moved to Iowa where he enrolled in the now defunct Tabor College.
Tabor College was founded in 1853 in Tabor, Iowa (a town heavily involved in the Underground Railroad in the 1850s) and was a project spearheaded by staunch abolitionist John Todd. Quickly, the university gained a reputation for offering education to both women and minorities. After years of struggling with finances, Tabor closed its doors for good in 1927.
After graduating from Tabor in 1881, Kealing moved to Waco where he took on the role of president at Paul Quinn College - a university established in Austin, Texas in 1872 for freed slaves. The university was established along with the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. And although the church still remains in Austin, the leaders of organization decided to relocate the university. Kealing served as president of the College until 1883.
In 1881, Paul Quinn College moved from its original location in Austin, Texas to its current location in Waco, Texas. The historically black college is still in operation today with a student body of about around 550.
After completing his term as president of Paul Quinn, H.T. Kealing moved to Austin, Texas in 1884. This was also the same year that Austin’s first school for black children was established - The Robertson Hill School was built at the corner of 11th Street and San Marcos. Kealing was head of the elementary school here until 1889 when the Robertson Hill School added a high school department - Kealing was appointed as its first principal. In 1907, the high school was renamed Anderson High School.
At the time the high school department was added to the Robertson Hill School, the School District only budgeted educational finances for white students. In order to fund the expansion of the high school department, Austin’s black community double taxed itself.
Much like with the gap in time between Kealing leaving Straight College and enrolling in Tabor, I’m not exactly sure when he left Austin. My best estimate is that Kealing stepped down as principal from Robertson Hill sometime between 1890 and 1895. After stepping down, Kealing started taking on the more important roles in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and more important roles as an advocate for former slaves.
In 1896, H.T. Kealing was appointed as the editor of the A.M.E Church Review, a quarterly publication still operating today that features “articles, book lists, reflections, sermons and lectures” related to the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He worked as the editor until 1912.
In 1901, Kealing traveled to London, England and was the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s spokesman at The Third Ecumenical Methodist Conference.
In 1903, one of Kealing’s essays The Characteristics of The Negro People, was published in a book titled The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative American Negroes of Today. Other contributors to the book include: Booker T. Washington, W.E.B DuBois, Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Charles Chesnutt.
Kealing was also a member of the following organizations: National Educational Association, The American Negro Academy, The National Negro Business League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP.)
In 1910, Kealing accepted an offer as the president of Western University in Quindaro, Kansas. During Kealing’s time as president, the university added a junior college and a school of religion. He served as president until he died on February 25th, 1918.
Started in 1865, Western University was founded to educate the children of freed slaves. After shutting down in 1877, the school was reopened with the help of the A.M.E Church in 1882. The school was closed for good in 1943.
Conclusion
I’m gonna be real here for a second - it’s a damn shame that nobody knows who H.T. Kealing is. I spent hours scouring Google, reading books that briefly mention him, scanning documents at the Austin History Center and trying my hardest to put together a timeline that makes sense. And there are still major gaps in the story. I wasn’t able to find out anything about his childhood. I wasn’t able to come up with a single anecdote about him. What I do know: he was a key organizer of Austin’s black education system. The kids enrolled in Blackshear, Kealing and LBJ owe him a thanks - we all do. Hightower Theodore Kealing laid the foundation for leaders like Charles Akins.
In 1930, The City of Austin named its first black junior high after him. Kealing Middle School now sits at 1607 Pennsylvania Avenue - in the same neighborhood H.T. Kealing spent his time educating the sons and daughters of former slaves.
That’s worth remembering.