The Lincoln School For Colored Children

EDITOR’S NOTE: In 1881 Crawfordsville School Trustees ordered a school be built at the southwest corner of Spring and North Walnut Streets to serve black students in grades 1-8. Once graduated, the students attended the integrated Crawfordsville High School. This site accommodated the vast majority of black families living in Crawfordsville’s north end. Trustees purchased the lot in September 1881 for $2,000. On Dec. 3, 1881, Hinckley and Norris won the contract to build the building for $6,400. The architects designed a plain two-story red brick structure with playgrounds for all the black children who resided in that area. Lincoln School officially opened in September 1882 with 42 students. When the black population moved to the east end to work in the factories, Linclon Building 1 was renovated into Horace Mann, and Linclon Build 2 was opened on East Wabash Avenue. That building became Lincoln Rec Center and was demolished in 1981. This project began as a project historical research project to honor all those individuals who went to school in separate and unequal facilities as the law dictated.

Arthur Theodore Long

Arthur Theodore Long was born in Morrilton, Arkansas, on 31 December 1884 to Henry and Mattie Buckner Long. Arthur had two younger sisters, Millie and Lula. He graduated from Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904 and entered the University of Illinois at age 20, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1908. Arthur then went on to further his education at Indiana University, Butler University, and the University of Chicago. In the end, Arthur earned teaching credentials in history, civics, English, music, and mathematics. Friends described Arthur as slender, tall, and light-skinned, with brown hair, gray eyes, and a serious mind toward discipline.

Arthur began his first teaching engagement at Crawfordsville’s Lincoln School soon after he earned his degree in 1908. In good weather, he often lit up the playground at night to stage impromptu school productions featuring Black heroes like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Benjamin Banneker.

In late 1909, Indianapolis Public School Number 26, one of the district’s colored schools, hired Arthur. He served as assistant principal from 1910 to 1915 and principal from 1915 to 1923. School 26 earned a nickname, the Little Tuskegee of the Indianapolis Educational System. Patrons of the school said it was the farsightedness of its leaders who purchased and remodeled the old manual training shop. The students learned practical skills such as botany, weaving, domestic sciences, culinary arts, nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, and millinery. A clubhouse for the boys included a game room, a pool room, a reading room, and a gymnasium. Arthur devoted three afternoons and three evenings each week to the boys at the house. Eventually, the building became an employment headquarters for boys who had graduated and needed work. He also taught night academic classes for students. At a special community event on 1 February 1913, Arthur unveiled a mural at School 26 painted by Mr. William E Scott, a colored artist. The picture’s subject was the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. It was the largest and only one of its kind at the time, and the school invited the public. Local newspapers covered the event and heaped praise on the project’s potential positive effects on the community.

On 6 June 1914, Arthur wrote and directed a musical comedy at the Majestic Theater in Indianapolis. The comedy, “The Passing Show,” garnered rave reviews. Tickets ranging from $.25 to $1.00 earned enough proceeds to purchase a piano for the boys’ clubhouse at School 26.

On 10 June 1916, Arthur was fortunate enough to graduate 31 pupils and host the celebration at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Indianapolis. He designed a program devoted to the life of people of color in the pioneer days of Indiana. Two vignettes were entitled “The Underground Railway” and “The Colored People of Indianapolis.”

While in Indianapolis, Arthur became a member of The Bachelors Club, the leading Black social organization, and took an active role in the thespian arena. 12 March 1921, an article appeared in the Indianapolis Times regarding his title role in “The Emperor Jones,” written by Eugene O’Neill and presented by the Little Theatre Society of Indianapolis. The play tells the story of Brutus Jones, an African-American train porter who kills a man, is sentenced to prison, escapes to a Caribbean Island, and cons his way to the Emperor’s throne. According to a review, “Mr. Long dominated every scene and gave to the role the great beauty of expressive and selection which the part demands.”

Eventually, Arthur served as a principals’ supervisor in Indiana, leaving here to begin his new position at Lincoln School in Trenton, New Jersey, where he remained for the next decade. Lincoln School, built on 36 acres at the expense of nearly $1 million, was considered one of the most beautiful pieces of school architecture designed exclusively for and by Blacks. At its peak, 38 instructors taught almost 1000 pupils. Arthur continued to promote art, dance, music, and drama as he played the piano for the students in the morning. Arthur left his position in Trenton in November 1933, just two months before his 50th birthday, and disappeared for the next six years.

Research indicates that he died on 19 June 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri, although those six years between his disappearance and death are in mystery.