In 1776 at the College of William and Mary, Phi Beta Kappa was founded to honor academic excellence and encourage liberal arts and science education. It took one hundred and twenty-three years to induct an African American woman into this society who exemplified their motto, “Love of learning is the Guide to Life.” It took another one hundred and fourteen years for that same woman to be given credit for being the first African American woman so honored. Well, better late than never.
Mary Annette Anderson was born in Shoreham, Vermont, on July 27, 1874. Her father, William John Anderson, was formerly enslaved. Her mother Philomine Langlois was of French Canadian and American Indian heritage. Mary’s younger brother, William John Anderson, Jr., became the second African American man to serve in the Vermont Legislature.
At Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies in Massachusetts, Mary excelled in her studies and graduated as her class president in 1895. Upon graduation, she enrolled in Middlebury College. This made her one of the first African American women to attend a New England college before 1900. In 1899, she became the first African American woman to graduate from Middlebury College. She addressed her graduating class as its valedictorian with a speech entitled, “The Crown of Culture.” She also wrote the class song, “Tenting on the Old Camp Ground.”
That same year on December 17, this highly accomplished woman was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa by the society’s Vermont chapter. This made her the first African American woman elected to the society, an honor originally attributed to Harlem Renaissance writer and editor, Jessie Redmon Fauset.
In 2003, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education published biographies of the first blacks to graduate from high-ranking liberal arts colleges. Mary’s 1899 graduation from Middlebury was listed along with her Phi Beta Kappa standing. Thus, an historical inaccuracy was corrected. You can read about this discovery and more about Mary here: https://2024.sci-hub.se/2841/756fc6db1a7880015736393065ee58d5/titcomb2004.pdf
After graduation, Mary taught at Straight College (now Dillard University) in New Orleans then moved to Washington D.C. to teach English grammar and history at Howard University from 1900 to 1907.
On August 7, 1907, Mary married fellow Howard University faculty member Walter Lucius Smith. She appears to have retired from teaching then. She and her husband kept homes both in D.C. and Vermont. Mary died in her hometown of Shoreham on May 2, 1922, at the age of 47.
In 2015, Middlebury College established the Anderson Freeman Resource Center in honor of Mary and Martin Henry Freeman, the first African American president of a college in U.S. history.
An article on Mary appeared in the 2005 winter issue of Phi Beta Kappa’s periodical, The Key Reporter. It shared that among her grandniece Myra’s prized possessions are a copy of Mary’s Phi Beta Kappa key and this handwritten reflection: “I’d like to add some beauty to life—I don’t exactly want to make people know more—but I’d love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me—to have some better joy or happy thought that would never have been experienced if I had not been born.”
She has certainly achieved that aspiration with me. Learning about Mary added beauty to my life.
For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, share your impressions of Mary in the comments.
“The $5 Kiss of Life”
By Michal Scott inside First Response
Trapped by the small-town conventions imposed on her, a pastor’s spinster daughter finds rescue in the town bad boy’s very public kiss.
Excerpt:
Beverly sighed. “I’ve always admired that about you, Rob. You don’t care what people say about you.”
He snorted and waved that off. “Sure, I care. I’m just better at handling the slights.”
“No, really,” she insisted. “You don’t seek anyone’s approval. You live by what you’re for, not what you’re against.” She looked at the rates on the booth kissing chart, considered the card in her pocket. “I admire you.” She cast her gaze down. “I wish I were more courageous like you.”
“No time like the present,” he teased.
Beverly looked up and saw him thumb toward the kissing rate chart.
“Do you have the courage to be seen getting a kiss before God and everybody from the town bad boy?”
His cheeky tone stirred amusement in her troubled breast. “I have been toying with buying one or more of these kisses.”
“One of these?” Rob leaned forward. “Or the one on that card in your pocket?”
Buylink: https://amzn.to/3dRvwLE
