Francis M. Wood

Education and early career Wood was born in Glasgow, Kentucky. He was a graduate of Glasgow High School He received his Master of Arts degree at Eckstein Norton University in Cane Spring, Kentucky in 1906. and a member of the Kentucky Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Later in 1924, Wood was also the Rockefeller Foundation student at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) in Hampton, Virginia. In 1927, Wood was reclassified as "Director of Negro Schools," with a commensurate salary increase. At this time, he moved his offices into the new location of the black teacher training school, Coppin Normal School, (now Coppin State University) when it relocated to Lafayette Avenue and McCulloh Streets. In 1928, Wood was briefly investigated by the School Board due to allegations he was being financially influenced by a local black leader, Tom Smith, but the two men were exonerated. According to newspaper reports however, this investigation did reveal that Dr. Wood was "regarded as an outsider" by some city residents, who sought his removal in favor of a black educator born in the city.

During his tenure, black enrollment in Baltimore City schools nearly doubled. Wood advocated for additional school facilities to support that greater enrollment. Wood oversaw the dedications of major black schools in Baltimore including Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary and an expanded campus for Frederick Douglas High School. Wood was also responsible for selecting names for many of the city's black schools, which had heretofore been identified only by their school number. He selected namesakes (both white and black) who had positively impacted the black community, including Harriet Tubman, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harvey Johnson and Frances Harper.

Despite his prestige and length of service in the city, a 1941 article in the Baltimore Sun described how, when the school board met, Wood, who was considered of lower rank, was required to be seated in the rear of the room, separate from the other school executives. The next year, citing both "the justice of the request" and Wood's "excellent service" to the city's schools, the executive secretary of the city's Public School Association, Marie Bauernschmidt put forward the proposal that Wood be promoted to the equal status of assistant superintendent. These requests for Wood's promotion were however "consistently refused" by the city's all-white school board.

Wood received an honorary doctorate in pedagogy from Morgan State College in 1931.

In response to a 1934 lynching in Somerset County, Maryland, Wood worked with the Urban League and other black leaders in Baltimore to draft a resolution calling on Governor Albert Ritchie to pass an anti-lynching statute. Later in the same year, Wood was selected by the new Republican governor-elect Harry Nice to serve on the Maryland Commission of Higher Education of Negroes, which was tasked to determine whether the HBCU Morgan College should be taken over by the State of Maryland. The commission released its report five years later, in 1939, recommending that the state purchase Morgan. Wood was also a member of the commission's subcommittee on awards, which was charged with awarding scholarships to colleges and universities for black students.

In 1939, Wood served as one faculty member for the Baltimore Police Training School, a free program which sought to prepare black candidates for the Baltimore City Police entrance examinations.

During World War II, Wood supported the American war effort against Japan and Germany, and advised his fellow black Americans not to "unduly press for advantages" during wartime.

Death and legacy In May 1943, Wood was hospitalized for a heart condition, aggravated by a recent flu. He died several weeks later at Johns Hopkins Hospital, on the night of May 8. The funeral service was attended by about 650 people, and was accompanied by a five-minute period of silence at all city schools, with flags flown at half-mast.

Following his death, Wood was succeeded as Director of Colored Schools by Elmer A. Henderson, then the principal of Booker T. Washington Junior High School. While Wood had been unable to achieve an equal title of assistant superintendent during his life, his successor Henderson finally was granted that position in 1945.

"Camp Francis M. Wood" was a summer camp for Baltimore City youth from low income families which existed along Bunker Hill Road in Baltimore County into the 1950s. Initially, the site was a camp operated by a private group headed by Wood himself, but it was purchased by Baltimore City Department of Public Welfare after his death and reopened in his honor.

Several different schools in Baltimore have borne Wood's name. Immediately following his death, the "Francis M. Wood School for colored handicapped children" was founded. The present-day Excel Academy at Francis M. Wood High School, an Alternative High School is the most recent iteration.