B.S. – Page 4 – The Black ISC Student Experience to 1950

August 4, 2022February 8, 2023

Madison, Walter G. Sr. (B.S., Mechanical Engineering, 1914; M.S., Engineering)

Evidence suggests that Walter Garfield Madison, member of the Cosmopolitan Club, 1914 graduate of Iowa State College, and head of an early Black family in Ames, was the first Black Iowa State student to put down roots in Ames after he graduated.

Madison came to Ames sometime between his graduation from Tuskegee in 1909 and his enumeration in the US Census on May 5th, 1910, as a laborer living at the campus home of Edgar Stanton. Such a move before enrolling would have helped Madison establish Iowa residency to lower his cost of tuition. Born in Manor, Texas, in 1888, Madison had left his parents and eight brothers and sisters behind to seek higher education in engineering, first earning a diploma in Steam Engineering from Tuskegee Institute and, then, a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Iowa State College. While at ISC, Madison played clarinet in the band, participated in the Forum Literary Society, and the Cosmopolitan Club.

His marriage to Gussie Irene Askew occurred in Cook County, IL, in 1917. The two later moved into a house at 1204 Third Street and had 4 sons—Walter Jr., Archie, Horace, and Ira. Both Walter, Jr., and Archie attended Iowa State.

The Madisons became one of the leading Black families in Ames, with Walter operating a successful plumbing and heating company that, over the years, won significant contracts with the City of Ames, Tuskegee Institute, and Fisk University, among others. Throughout his time in Ames, Madison was a strident voice for respectful and equitable treatment of Blacks. In 1922, he won a lawsuit against an Ames restaurant owner for discrimination.

Like Archie and Nancy Martin, progenitors of the best-known Black family in Ames, who housed Black students in their home at 218 Lincoln Way, the Madisons opened their home to no fewer than 12 Black ISC students and also took in other Black lodgers between 1926 and 1941.

After some years splitting time between his Ames business and work at Fisk University in Nashville, where he held the position of Chief Engineer beginning in 1938, Madison moved his family from Ames permanently to take up employment as a Professor of Engineering at Howard University in 1942.

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: The design of a central heating system [for the] Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (Ala.), 1914

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://iowa-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/12tutg/01IASU_ALMA21190364460002756

Sources

Photo Credit: Iowa State University. (1914). The Bomb 1914. p. 83. Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.lib.iastate.edu/islandora/object/isu:TheBomb_47457#page/94/mode/2up

Biography available at HBCU Connections at Iowa State University : Walter G. Madison, Sr. ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/Walter_G._Madison,_Sr. )

August 4, 2022February 27, 2023

Martin, Robert Leander (B.S., Electrical Engineering, 1942)

Robert Leander Martin was born the sixth of six children in Dubuque, IA, 9 February 1919, to chiropodist (podiatrist) Dr. Henry Ambrose Martin and his wife, Mattie A. Martin.

Robert Martin flew 64 missions with the Tuskegee Airmen in WWII, was shot down in enemy territory, and received multiple awards for valor, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart, seven awards of the Air Medal, and as a surviving member of the Tuskegee Airmen, a Congressional Gold Medal in 2007 that acknowledged the unit for their “unique military record that inspired revolutionary reform in the Armed Forces.” ( https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/congressional-gold-medal-tuskegee-airmen/nasm_I20071282001 ).

Martin married Odette C. Ewell 21 August 1950, and they had four children, Gabrielle, Noelle, Dominique, and Robert Martin Jr. After finding it difficult to get employment in electrical engineering because of his race and moving from one low-wage, service job to another, Martin finally secured a job as a draftsman with the Chicago Park District (https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/robert-leander-martin-1919-2018/) Robert Martin died in Olympia Fields, Cook County, Illinois, 26 July 2018, of pneumonia. In 2019, an Act of Congress renamed the US Post Office in Olympia Fields as the Capt. Robert Martin Post Office, and in Jul 2020, the Dubuque Regional Airport Commission voted to support renaming the airport terminal after Martin. Fundraising is now underway to complete that project.

August 4, 2022February 8, 2023

Lockett, John Leon (B.S., Agronomy, 1923; M.S., Agronomy, 1928)

In 1926, Lockett, a Professor of Farm Crops and Soils, was one of five Iowa State graduates among the seven professors in the Agriculture Department at Prairie View. The others were Iowa State graduates E. B. Evans, R. B. Atwood, L. A. Potts, and J. M. Alexander. After receiving his Ph.D. from Rutgers, Dr. Lockett went on to become a professor of Agronomy at Virginia State College for Negroes, where he later became Director of the School of Agriculture until1963, when he gave up the position (“John L. Lockett,” 2018)

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: Some chemical and bacteriological relations of organic matter in the soil to crop yield, 1928

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://iowa-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/12tutg/01IASU_ALMA21221825150002756

Sources

Photo Credit: Prairie View A&M University(1926)

1926 The Prairie(p.32)

https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=yearbooks

Biography available at HBCU Connections at Iowa State University : John L. Lockett ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/John_L._Lockett )

John L. Lockett. (2018, May 17). HBCU Connections | Iowa State University, . Retrieved 5 February 2022. from http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/index.php?title=John_L._Lockett&oldid=3

August 4, 2022February 8, 2023

Crutcher, Benjamin (“Ben”) Harrison (B.S., Dairy Foods and Industry, 1925; M.S., Dairy Husbandry and Comparative Physiology, 1931)

Benjamin Harrison Crutcher was born 6 August 1890 in Harrodsburg City, Kentucky, to Silas Crutcher, a plasterer and sometime clergyman, and his wife, Anna (aka Ann or Anne) M. Worrell Crutcher. On 26 April 1918, Benjamin enlisted in the Army. He was discharged 5 July 1919. Crutcher graduated from Tuskegee Institute, Florida A & M College in Tallahassee, Florida, and Iowa State College, where he earned a B.S. in Dairy Foods and Industry in 1925 and an M.S. in Dairy Husbandry and Comparative Physiology in 1931. When Crutcher earned his B.S. in 1925-26, he was one of only 13 Black regular session students at ISC (“A Record,” 1926). His classmates included Compton Chapman, Maurice Thomasson, and Willa Juanita Ewing.

Crutcher married Cleopatra Baker in 1922, while taking some time off from college coursework. As an Iowa State undergraduate, in 1924-25, Crutcher roomed at 2522 Chamberlain, with Holloway Smith, Thomas Whibby, and Harold Tutt.

In 1935, as a Dairyman at Tuskegee Institute, he was listed as an attendee at the banquet held by the Iowa State Alumni Association for Frederick D. Patterson’s inauguration as President of Tuskegee. By 1942, he was Head of the Animal Husbandry Department and assistant to the Director of Agriculture at Georgia State College, Savannah. In a second career, Crutcher worked as a medical technologist for the Veterans Administration in Tuskegee, Alabama, where he died on 3 August 1981. At the time of his death, Crutcher, age 91, was the oldest active member of the Alpha Nu Lambda Chapter (Tuskegee) of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity (“Omega Chapter,” 1981).

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: The animal parasites of the woodchuck (Marmota monax L.) with special reference to the protozoa, 1936

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://quicksearch.lib.iastate.edu/permalink/01IASU_INST/174tg9m/alma990007117870102756

Sources

A record of the Negro at college 1926. (1926, August). The crisis: A record of the darker races, p. 174.

Omega chapter. (1981, Fall). Sphinx 67. p. 82.

August 4, 2022February 8, 2023

Ewing, Willa Juanita (B.S., Botany, 1926; M.S., Horticulture, 1935)

Willa Juanita Ewing, known as “Juanita,” was born 29 December 1903 in Keytesville, Missouri, to William Ewing and his wife Lee Ewing. Juanita’s mother married several times which resulted in Juanita’s name changing in her youth. Leaving her first husband in Missouri, Lee moved with her young daughter to Des Moines, where she married Edwin H. Carter. The Carter family moved to Ames in 1915, becoming one of the earliest known Black families in the community. By 1920 Lee was a widow, working as a housekeeper at the Tri Delta house and living there with her daughter, called “Waneeta Carter” in the 1920 census. By 1925 Lee had married her last husband, Charles A. Anthony, and with daughter “Juanita Ewing,” according to the 1925 census, had moved to a house at 2928 Woodman (now Wood) Street.

During her undergraduate years in the 1920s, Juanita lived with the Anthonys at their Woodman Street home. The family made money during the Depression by renting the house to Black ISC students for several years after 1930, during which time the family moved into the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house, where Lee was a cook. This situation was similar to that which Lee and Juanita had experienced when they first moved to Ames between 1915 and 1920 and lived at the Tri Delta house.

Ewing was the first Black graduate of Ames High School in 1922 and is the first recorded African American woman to receive a degree from Iowa State College: a Bachelor’s of Science in Botany in 1926, and later, in 1935, a Master’s of Science in Horticulture. During her time at ISC, Ewing was active in the Ya-Wa-Ca Club, affiliated with the Young Women’s Christian Association (Y.W.C.A.) When she graduated in 1926, Juanita was one of only 13 Black regular session students at ISC (“A Record,” 1926). Her classmates included Compton Chapman, Benjamin Crutcher, and Maurice Thomasson.

After completing her Master’s degree in 1935, Ewing got a job at the Alabama State Teachers College (now Alabama State University) in Montgomery, Alabama, where she first served as an extension agent, then taught freshman and sophomore botany, and later was placed in charge of beautification of the college grounds. As a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Ewing was instrumental in establishing a chapter of the sorority at Alabama State and, later, in 1959, after she had moved to Fairbanks Alaska, was a charter member of the Alaska Alumnae Chapter in Fairbanks, Alaska.

By 1965, she was teaching at Joy Elementary School in Fairbanks. That same year she lodged charges of racism in teacher hiring against the district Superintendent, a move that would, no doubt, have garnered the approval of her long-dead mother, one of the earliest members of the Ames Branch of the NA.A.C.P.

Willa Ewing died in Des Moines, Iowa, on 8 May 1985.

Iowa State College Thesis Title: The comparative anatomy of the leaf of Brassica juncea (L.) Coss. and its broadleaved and curled varieties, 1935

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/17726

Sources

Photo Credit: A record of the Negro at college 1926. (1926, August). The crisis: A record of the darker races, p. 187.

Biography available at HBCU Connections at Iowa State University : Willa J. Ewing ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/Willa_J._Ewing )

A record of the Negro at college 1926. (1926, August). The crisis: A record of the darker races, p. 174.