Luminaries

J. R. E. Lee

Although born a slave, John Robert Edward Lee overcame immense adversity. During the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, he managed to attend elementary and secondary school and go on to Bishop College in Marshall, Texas. After graduating with honors in 1889, he became principal in a two-teacher school in Palestine. He returned after two years, in 1891, to become the dean of men and professor of Latin, mathematics, and history at his alma mater.

He soon became associated with the leading Black thinker of the age, Booker T. Washington, and in 1901 took a position at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. At Tuskegee, influenced by Washington and his self-help philosophy, Lee put out a call for the founding of an association of Black teachers in 1903. The call would result in the founding of the National Association of Colored Teachers in 1904, which would later become the American Teachers Association. He served as its president for the first five years.

Lee remained active in education the rest of his life.