Jan 24, 2019 Orange County Review
Jesse Palmer, Eugene Turner and Charles Francis of Boy Scout Troop 111 pose in front of the Leggett’s store window decorated in observance of National Boy Scout Week in February 1969. Review file photo
We all know at least a little something about Scouting in America. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) was founded in 1910, and guess what else was going on? America’s strident call for segregation upheld by Jim Crow laws. The BSA was no exception; however, as I have written before, this mentality of separation and exclusion would not remain an obstacle for the African-American communities across the nation.
Today’s story is a brief telling of the national history of black Scouting (on the boys’ side—we will get to the girls in another column). An opportunity to learn more about what happened in Orange County will take place Sunday, Jan. 27, at 2 p.m. at The Arts Center In Orange. This free program will be sponsored by the Orange County African-American Historical Society and will cover the topic “Black Scouting in Orange, Va.”
The BSA is structured with “councils” that include organized troops from localities within the council’s region. In 1911, the first African-American Scout troop was formed in Elizabeth City, N.C. and in 1916, the first official Boy Scout Council-promoted Negro Troop 75 began in Louisville, Ky. By 1926, there were 248 all-black troops, and 10 years later there was only one council in the entire South that refused to accept any black troops.
But it was not all sweetness and light. In the late 1920s, an Interracial Committee (or Service) was formed and established the “Outreach Program.” This sounds like a fine plan until one looks at the fine print. The program combined racial minorities with rural and poor boys as well as those with disabilities, often with no distinction between those they characterized as having less opportunity and those who were not white.
The 1960s would bring a shift in focus from rural area scout recruitment to the more urban areas. Along with this, the Interracial Service became the Urban Relationship Service and work with inner-city youth could be counted as successful. However, “separate but equal” was still the law of the land and it was not until the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that BSA would seriously begin to integrate its troops. Prior to that, there was more evidence of integrated troops in the North—with only one such troop existing in the Deep South—and in some areas of the South, black Scouts were disallowed from wearing the uniform.
Nonetheless, time brought change and though there remained a few all-black troops—by choice, not law—the Boy Scouts of America mantra of leadership was pervasive regardless of color. There is much more history to share and I encourage you to attend the program on Sunday to learn what happened in Orange County.
In my background research for this column, I came across a short list of leaders whose names you will recognize and who, some may say, “got their start in Scouts.” So to conclude, here are a few black leaders with a Scouting past: Guion Bluford, Emery Moorehead, Colin Powell, Chuck Smith, Togo West, Hank Aaron, John H. Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr.
Note: Much of the material here is attributed to an article written by Kurt Banas of Wake Forest University and published by the African-American Registry at www.aaregistry.org.
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