A Barber has taught in Richland County every year for a century
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By Warner M.Montgomery Warner@TheColumbiaStar.com

Photo contributed by Warner Montgomery The historic Harriet Barber house, the house built by Sam and Harriett Barber in Hopkins in the 1870s.

The sale of 42 1/2 acres in Lower Richland by the Freedmans' Bureau in 1872 led to a record- setting family tradition that continues today.

Sam Barber, a freed slave, well- digger, and preacher from Virginia, made his way to Lower Richland before the Civil War. In Log Town, a suburb of Kingsville (a railroad junction between Ft. Motte and Gadsden), he met Harriet, a free mulatto. After the dust of the Civil War settled, they married. Harriet took a job at the Canesville Post Office while Sam dug wells during the week and preached on weekends.

They saved their money and bought the acreage in Hopkins from the Freedmans' Bureau. They cleared the land, built a two- room log house, and dug a well. They had eight children, all of whom they schooled in the ABCs, the numbers, and the Bible.

Their youngest child, John B. Barber, inherited the property and settled there with his wife, Mamie Holley. They farmed the land growing cotton, corn, and upland rice. Their home was on Lower Richland Boulevard just a couple hundred yards from the Hopkins train station. Mamie gave birth to 11 children, five girls and six boys, which filled the wooden two- room house.

Instilled with the values of hard work, education, and religion from Sam and Harriet, the Barbers became stalwarts of the community. John became a respected Baptist preacher serving St. James', St. Marks', Gadsden, Pleasant Grove, and New Light Beulah churches. He also received enough education to become a school teacher and took his first paying job as a teacher in Lexington County in 1899. Within a year, however, he brought his chalk and slate back across the river.

At the turn of the century education was terribly inadequate and totally segregated throughout the South. Columbia had one of the three city school districts in S.C. but was struggling to maintain one school for negro students (Howard) and four for whites (Boy's Academy, Girl's Academy, Laurel Street School, and Blossom Street School). The buildings were in deplorable condition and over- crowded. Pot- bellied stoves in classrooms provided the only heat and open windows the only air.

Teachers were paid less than $500 for five or six months of four- hour days. The school year ran October and November and February to April, but varied with the weather, monies available, and epidemics that sometimes closed the schools for weeks.

In the rural areas there was even less schooling, and it was much less organized. A community or a church could establish a school by hiring a teacher and recruiting a few students. School terms lasted less than four months and the daily session depended on the teacher. Educators such as John B. Barber who were dedicated and educated became itinerant teachers plying their trade throughout the county.

Barber taught at Killian School, Dabneypond School near Twin Lakes, Capernaum School in what is now Ft. Jackson, and Flat Lake School on Old 48 near Bethel AME Church. All of these schools were one room- one teacher schools.

In 1919 Barber took a job at the Hopkins Elementary School in the Jerusalem Church yard on Clarkson Road, the same school he and his wife had attended but at a different location. He stayed at the school until 1940.

The seventh child of John and Mamie Barber, Ulysses, was born in 1912. As a six- year- old child eager to learn his alphabet and numbers, he attended his father's Flat Lake School. For one school year his father drilled him over and over until he was able to recite his ABCs forward and backward and his numbers to 1000 and back.

Ulysses followed his father to Hopkins Elementary School where he was the star pupil of teachers Ella Sumpter, Rev. J.W. Neal, Bertha Davis, and his father. During the eight months when school was not in session, he worked on his parents' farm.

After four years his father declared that Ulysses had completed his elementary education and was ready to be a full time farmer. He was 10 years old. John B. Barber believed his daughters should get their education first because they needed it to succeed in life. The boys, on the other hand, could make a living on the strength of their backs. So young Ulysses worked in the fields and hung around Hopkins waiting for his sisters to complete their education, all the while trying to quench his thirst for knowledge by reading every book he could get his hands on.

In 1929, after four years of waiting and working, it was Ulysses's turn at further schooling. His father took him into Columbia to Booker T. Washington High School to apply for admission. After a week of tests and interviews the principal, C.A. Johnson, shook his hand and invited him to attend the only high school for black students in Richland County.

B.T. Washington High School was truly a cultural shock for Ulysses - hundreds of city kids, different clothes, difficult accents, electricity, and flush toilets. His first day in the classroom was the first time he had seen a blackboard. It was also the first time he had sat in a desk with a back on it.

To this day Ulysses R. Barber remembers his teachers at BTW. C.A. Johnson left to become Supervisor of Negro Schools for Columbia Public Schools. Barber fondly remembers. "I tried to be like him when I became a teacher and principal."

After graduating in 1933, Barber returned to his family farm. Jobs were scarce, he didn't have the resources to go to college, and his father needed him in the fields. He farmed for a year then enrolled at Allen University in Columbia. Four years later he had his BA and was ready to teach, but once again the Depression forced him back on the farm.

1941 was Ulysses R. Barber's commencement year. He became principal, teacher, and coach at the new four- room Hopkins Elementary School on Clarkson Road now occupied by the Glory Church. He taught everything to all grades and tutored the students of high school age. His salary was $42.50 a month for the school year - four months. He got a 50% raise in 1942 when the school year was increased to six months.

1954 was a traumatic year for education in the South. The Brown vs. Board of Education decision in the US Supreme Court ended the so- called "Separate But Equal" system the southern states had thrown up to keep the schools segregated. In spite of this decision the Lower Richland School District #5 built a new glass and brick high school on 30 acres in Hopkins to avoid integration.

Ulysses R. Barber became the first principal of Hopkins High School.

In addition to his duties as principal, Barber also supervised four elementary schools: Claytor, Mill Creek, Siloam, and Mt. Moriah.

In 1959, Barber returned to the elementary classroom at Gadsden Elementary School.

"Those were my golden years," said Barber. "I never saw a lick passed at Gadsden. The students had respect for each other and for the teachers. I never had to ask the students to be quiet."

Barber was elected District One Teacher of the Year in 1972 after 32 years of teaching. Ulysses R. Barber retired in 1978 after 38 years in education. He returned to his family farm where he still grows collards, potatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, onions and other garden crops.

The tall quiet man married Ann Portee in 1940. They had four daughters, three of whom are still teaching in Richland School District One. Twins Mary (Kirkland) and Carrie (White), and Marie (Adams) earned BAs from Benedict and MAs from USC. Mary is teaching adult education at Lower Richland High; Carrie is teaching at Arden Elementary; and Marie is teaching at Keenan High School. Daughter Jean (Grant) received her BA and MA from Smith College and is a medical social worker in Florida.

Ulysses jokes that "Ann never taught in a schoolhouse, but she taught everywhere else."

The Barbers are proud of the fact that for 100 years a member of their immediate family has taught in a school in Richland County. The tradition the former slaves, Sam and Harriet Barber, started in 1872 continues into the 21st century. On 42 1/2 acres in Hopkins the children were taught to love hard work, education, and religion. The house still stands, the farm still produces, and the Barbers still teach. Sam and Harriet must be smiling.