James Edwin Campbell

James Edwin Campbell (September 28, 1867 – January 26, 1896) was an American educator, school administrator, newspaper editor, poet, and essayist. Campbell was the first principal of the West Virginia Colored Institute (present-day West Virginia State University) from 1892 until 1894, and is considered by the university as its first president.

Campbell was born in 1867 in Pomeroy, Ohio, where he completed his secondary education at Pomeroy Academy in 1884. His first job was as a teacher in Buck Ridge, Ohio, for two years. He relocated to West Virginia, where he served as the editor of The Pioneer and West Virginia Enterprise newspapers. He was the principal of the Point Pleasant Colored School (later known as Langston Academy) from 1891 until 1892. In 1892, he was selected as the first principal of the West Virginia Colored Institute, serving until 1894. He was awarded an honorary Bachelor of Philosophy degree from Shaw University in 1893.

From an early age, Campbell exhibited a talent for writing poetry and stories. He wrote poetry and stories throughout his life. His first book, Driftings and Gleanings, a volume of poetry and essays in standard American English, was published in 1887. Following his resignation from the West Virginia Colored Institute, Campbell relocated to Chicago in 1895, where he became a staff writer for the Chicago Times-Herald. He continued to publish his own poems and articles, and he participated in the publication of Four O'Clock Magazine. In 1895, he published his second book, Echoes from the Cabin and Elsewhere, a collection of poetry in the southern African-American vernacular dialect. He was among the first African-American poets to write in the African-American vernacular dialect.

Campbell died in Pomeroy, Ohio, in 1896 at the age of 28. At West Virginia State University, Campbell is the namesake of Campbell Hall and the Campbell Conference Center.

Early life and education

James Edwin Campbell was born on September 28, 1867, in the Kerr's Run section of Pomeroy, Ohio, to James Edward Campbell and his wife, Aletha "Letha" Esther Starks Campbell. His parents were both born across the Ohio River in Virginia (present-day West Virginia) prior to the American Civil War. His childhood playmate, future West Virginia state auditor J. S. Darst, cited Campbell as a person who rose to prominence in spite of his early unfavorable environment, and described the "Bloody First" ward of Pomeroy as "tough".

Early work in education and newspaper publishing Campbell commenced his career in education in Buck Ridge, Ohio (along the Ohio River), where he served as a teacher for two years. He also taught in Rutland, Ohio, for some time. In reporting Campbell's selection as the Enterprise editor, The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer described Campbell as "an educated young Ohioan" that was "highly spoken of". The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer remarked that he possessed "a natural gift of oratory, and his address was brimfull of eloquence, besides being instructive and worthy of attention". Under Campbell's leadership, the school relocated to a four-room, two-story brick building, which had been vacated by a white school. Following this relocation, the school was renamed Langston Academy in honor of African-American educator John Mercer Langston. Campbell served as principal of Langston Academy until 1892, when he was succeeded by Ida Wilson. Located in Farm, West Virginia (an unincorporated community later known as Institute), near Charleston, the institute had been founded in 1891 under the Morrill Act of 1890 to provide West Virginia's African Americans with education in agricultural and mechanical studies.

Prior to Campbell's selection as principal, an act of the West Virginia Legislature appropriated $10,000 for the purchase of a farm on which to construct a building for the institution. A committee empowered by the legislature purchased along the Kanawha River, near the community of Farm, which was once part of the estate of Samuel I. Cabell and his wife Mary Barnes Cabell (a former slave). The institute's first building was completed in April 1892 and received by the school's Board of Regents on April 20. Campbell formally opened the institute on April 26, 1892. The institute commenced an experimental term on May 3, 1892, with 20 students. The original curriculum consisted of the equivalent of a high school education, and included agriculture, horticulture, mechanical arts, domestic science, vocational training, and teacher preparation. Washington requested that Tuskegee graduate James M. Canty write a letter to Campbell. In 1893, Campbell was awarded an honorary Bachelor of Philosophy degree from Shaw University.

As the institute's principal, Campbell provided guidance to West Virginia's African-American coal miners in assisting their children in acquiring an education. Throughout his tenure at the institute, Campbell resided in Fleming Hall. The association aimed "to elevate the character and advance the interest of the profession of teaching, and to promote the cause of popular education in West Virginia". Campbell spoke at the association's second annual meeting in Parkersburg in 1892.

Writing career

From an early age, Campbell exhibited a talent for writing poetry and stories. Early in his writing career, he wrote simple poems in the African-American vernacular dialect, on August 4, 1891, in Harrison County, Ohio. Champ was also a poet and educator, He was survived by his parents and his wife.

Following his death, his wife taught in Pomeroy In 1973, West Virginia State College honored Campbell by naming its vocational building Campbell Hall. When the college transitioned its former home economics cottage into a conference center, it named the facility the Campbell Conference Center after Campbell. In 2019, the Meigs County Historical Society unveiled a Meigs County Bicentennial Marker at the site of Campbell's primary school, Kerr's Run Colored School, and concluded the unveiling ceremony with a reading from one of Campbell's books.

Selected works Books

Poems "A Night in June" "Mobile-Buck" "Ol' Doc' Hyar" "The Gobble-un Gets Him"