School Time with Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown

By Darby Ronning

An unexpected favorite stop of mine on the Southern trip was the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, located in Gibsonville, North Carolina. Run by North Carolina Historic Sites, the museum campus includes Brown’s home, Canary Cottage (ca. 1927) and the school she founded in 1902, the Palmer Memorial Institute. Our visit left me with awe for the educational and cultural center that a remarkable woman had built, and even greater interest in the interpretive approaches of a museum interpreting events that were still in living memory for many former staff and students.

Dr. Brown, who was descended from formerly enslaved people, started the Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial Institute (PMI) in 1902 at the age of only 19. PMI was one of the few educational opportunities for rural Black students in the segregated south. The school began with an agricultural and manual focus, eventually evolving into a college preparatory school, which saw more than 1,000 students graduate during Dr. Brown’s lifetime.

Our tour began in Dr. Brown’s home. Situated in the middle of the campus, the house was a social gathering point, a place for Dr. Brown to meet with potential funders, and a boarding house for teachers at the school. I had never been in a house museum with furnishings that were so recent, most dating to the mid-twentieth century, and I was especially charmed with a tea cart very similar to one that my grandfather used to own. Seeing the recent material culture connected me to the time and place being interpreted in a personal and direct fashion.

After our guided tour of the house, our cohort had time to follow the walking path through the campus independently. Much of the signage had photos of everyday student life: eating meals in the cafeteria, getting ready for school dances, or just goofing off with friends. Seeing those photos gave a real sense of life to the site and a feeling for the community that the school fostered.

Walking through the school campus on a hot summer day, I was struck by the enormity of what Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown had built. Through the guided tour and outdoor signage, we got a taste of her personality: incredibly driven, no-nonsense, and devoted to her community. She must have been a real force of nature. I realized that I don’t think I have ever visited another historical site dedicated to the life’s work of a singular Black woman, so I was especially grateful to have gotten this opportunity. I’m also grateful for the state’s commitment to public access for the site; it was free to enter, and guided tours were only a couple of dollars. Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown deserves to be a part of our historical consciousness, and I’m glad this site is helping keep her memory alive.