A Black Greek Connection: Lena Hillsman and Delta Sigma Theta

With the election of Kamala Harris as the next Vice President of the United States, both HBCUs (she went to Howard) and black sororities (she is an AKA) have been in the news lately. I’ve been exploring my Cooper/Cummings family’s historical relationships to HBCUs for a little while now, but we also have a historical connection to at least one black sorority: Delta Sigma Theta. In fact, one of our family members helped to found a new chapter!

Lena Mae Hillsman, shared courtesy of Delta Sigma Theta, Beta Psi Chapter

 

Mystery Monday: What Did Borden Scott Do for the Panama Canal?

I came across something interesting while I was tracking Sydney Borden Scott through the catalogues of Atlanta Baptist College. In addition to providing all sorts of basic information about the school and current students, the catalogues also list what all of their alumni are up to during the year being discussed. And when the catalogue for the 1904-1905 school year was published, here’s what they had to say about Borden:

Catalogue of Atlanta Baptist College, 1897/98 - 1911/12. (1904-1905, p. 30). Found on HathiTrust: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.30112004585920

Yes: Scott, Sidney B. - Isthmian Canal Commission – Cristobal, Panama.

Working Wednesday: At the Blackboard, Borden Scott

Sydney Borden Scott stepped into the world as a graduate of Atlanta Baptist College (now Morehouse) in the Spring of 1901. What came next? To be honest, I’m not quite sure. However, I do know what he’s up to just a little bit later, from the Fall of 1903 to the Spring of 1904: He’s teaching a gaggle of 3^rd and 4^th graders in Athens, Georgia. In fact, he’s not just teaching them, he’s also the Principal of their school!

Catalogue of Atlanta Baptist College, 1903-1904, showing Borden's current occupation as an alumni of the Academic Course class of 1898. He is also listed with the same info as a graduate of the College Course c/o 1901, but the info is broken across two lines. Accessed via Hathi Trust: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.3011200458590

 

The Education of Lula A. Scott - Part 2

Once upon a time, in 1897, a woman named Lula A. Scott began her studies at Spelman Seminary. She was the younger half-sister of my 2x Great-Grandmother, Scoatney Scott. Perhaps she looked like, or was even one of, the young ladies in this photo, published in 1897.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. (1897). Students of Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Ga. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-7120-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

I ended my last post on Lula Scott’s education by asking if she’d made it through her studies, earning her degree. Well, good news: she did! 

The Education of Lula A. Scott - Part I

Sydney Borden Scott wasn’t the only one of my 2x Great-Grandmother’s siblings to receive a strong academic education. While Borden (as he called himself) was starting his fourth year in the Academic Course at Atlanta Baptist College, his sister Lula was beginning her first year at Spelman Seminary!

Lula Scott was born about 1882 in Georgia, likely in either Washington or Hancock Counties. She was about 2 years younger than Borden and about 22 years younger than Scoatney, her half-sister (they shared the same father, but had different mothers). And within just a few years of her brother starting his education in Atlanta, Lula followed in his footsteps.

The Education of Borden Scott: Atlanta Baptist College

Hey Cooper Cummings Family! If you attended our Virtual Family Reunion, you heard the 5-second synopsis of Sydney Borden Scott’s time at Atlanta Baptist College - this blog post fills in the details (as best I understand them).

Sydney Borden Scott, or Borden, as he seems to have preferred, was the younger half-brother of my 2x great-grandmother Scoatney Scott Cooper. She was born in the early years of the Civil War, he about 20 years later. Both seem to have been the children of cotton country, and of the people whose unpaid labor had made that crop so profitable. But whereas she remained in rural Georgia, marrying, having children and even owning land, he left on a path that took him through Atlanta, Georgia all the way to Chicago, Illinois, and to a career as a physician and postal clerk. She planted her roots more deeply, while he, in a sense, uprooted his. 

The Education of Borden Scott: What's In A Name?

Before I dig into Borden Scott’s time at Atlanta Baptist Seminary (which became Atlanta Baptist College while he was a student, and then Morehouse College later on), I have to address a bit of a mystery. Otherwise, it may seem like I’m playing fast and loose with the records!

I mentioned in an earlier blog post, almost as an aside, that Sydney Borden Scott seemed to prefer to go by his middle name, Borden, rather than his first. Both his World War I and II Draft Registration Cards, for which he would have provided the information, list him as “Borden Scott.” 

 

The Education of Borden Scott: A Prologue

Before Sydney Borden Scott was a 30-ish-year-old man graduating from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at the University of Illinois, he was a just a boy in Georgia. And somewhere around the age of 18, that boy graduated – for the first time – from what would later become Morehouse College. The year was 1898.

Here Comes the Graduate, Dr. Sydney Borden Scott

On the 20^th of June 1910, Volume 16, Number 6 of The Plexus reported on the 28^th Annual Commencement of the College of Physicians and Surgeons within the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois. Of the ceremony, which had taken place at the Studebaker Theatre on June 7^th, The Plexus wrote:

As the orchestra played Mendelssohn’s Grand March, ‘Athalie,’ the one hundred and thirty one graduates wearing caps and gowns, entered the left rear door of the main floor of the theatre and in solemn order, marched down the left aisle, taking their places in the middle block of seats.