Lincoln/Cobb School: A pearl of great price

Like a valued pearl, Black education developed slowly with layered persistence. Law once denied the enslaved individual education. That shameful irritant, in time, layered into a gem.

In 1865, Missouri legislators reorganized the state with a new Constitution which abolished slavery and instituted public school education. ALL LEARNERS, ages 5 to 21, were entitled to at least a four-month school session each year, and separate schools were mandated in every township in which 20 or more Black children lived.

Cape Girardeau's board of education immediately met this obligation, due in large part to the active role of St. James AME Church and Samuel Newlin's (a Black educator) readiness to begin. Newlin, Wilson R. Kenney, John Sides and John S. Cobb were the first series of teachers to lead Cape's fledgling Black school.

Layer by layer, facilities for the Lincoln school improved from rented, ill-equipped buildings (the Union Aid Building on Fountain near Bellevue, the old Lutheran Church and the Negro Masonic Lodge), until, 25 years later, a purposefully designed school house was erected at 731 Merriwether. In 1925, Lincoln School was renamed the John S. Cobb School.

Enrollment grew. In its first 1865 term, Newlin reported 80 to 90 students, children and adults. By 1873, 150 pupils were enrolled in a school deemed "second to none" by the county superintendent. When the new two-story brick Lincoln school had opened for the 1891 term, 202 students showed up, taught by only two paid teachers. An addition expanded the building in 1892, and a third teacher was added. Cobb School expanded into secondary education in the early 1900s and attracted non-resident students from outlying towns who boarded with local families to attend school.

Fires plagued Lincoln/Cobb School. A mysterious fire severely damaged the school in April 1916. Temporary repairs were made, and the children returned to finish the school year in the scorched building. A devastating fire in March 1953 damaged the beloved school beyond repair. The lower grade students were sent to another school house and the high schoolers integrated into the all white Central High School. Cobb School was not rebuilt.G.D. Fronabarger ~ Southeast Missourian archive

The need for qualified Black teachers was constant. Professor Cobb conducted annual Summer Institutes at Lincoln School to provide certification beyond basic education and promote methods in the art of effective teaching. Cobb mentored many whose skills influenced schools throughout the region.

Black teachers taught more students but earned less: 1896 salary for Lorimier School (white) principal -- $80/month; Lincoln (Black) -- $60. Lincoln teachers received $5 less per month. Pay inequities were finally resolved in 1946.

Layer on layer, academics and practical skills taught at school enhanced the community. Lincoln School's orchestra, art fairs and dramatic plays attracted crowds. "Penny Fairs" raised funds for piano rent and purchased stereopticon kits. Field days and picnics at the end of the school year were as big events in 1920 as they are today. Commencement ceremonies, often featuring prominent orators, were standing-room-only affairs.

Cobb School was a meeting place for the whole community to organize, develop leadership, and exercise self-determined plans for betterment. The Success Club, Community Reading Club, the Red Cross, the Negro Civic League and the NAACP met at the school.

Despite struggles of underfunding, understaffing and overcrowded conditions through its history, Lincoln/Cobb School was the pride of the Black community life -- an iridescent pearl revered and memorialized -- too easily discarded by other authorities.