Benjamin F. Hubert

Benjamin F. Hubert
Hubert pictured in The Hubertonian 1947, Savannah State yearbook
President Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth and Georgia State College
In office 1926–1947
Preceded by	Cyrus G. Wiley
Succeeded by	James A. Colston
Personal details
Born	December 25, 1884 Hancock County, Georgia
Died	April 29, 1958(1958-04-29) (aged 73) Atlanta, Georgia
Profession	educator

Benjamin Franklin Hubert (December 25, 1884 – April 29, 1958) served as president of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth and Georgia State College from 1926 until 1947.

Biography

Although records disagree about the year in which Hubert was born, his New York Times obituary places the date at December 25, 1884. Hubert was born to Zach and Camilla Hubert, African American farmers who owned several hundred acres of land in the northern part of Hancock County Georgia. The Huberts were surrounded by a dozen other black farm owning families. The community, called Springfield, built a church, a general store, and a rudimentary four-year grade school. To further educate their children, the Huberts sent the oldest children away to board in nearby schools, and ultimately sent all twelve of their children to college. After he graduated from college, Zach Hubert called his oldest son home to expand the grade school into a high school. As the sixth child, Benjamin Hubert benefited from this expansion. Like his brothers, he attended Atlanta Baptist (later known as Morehouse College). He earned a high school diploma and graduated with a B.A. in 1909.

Afterward, he enrolled in the agricultural science program at Massachusetts Agricultural College where he studied under Kenyon Butterfield, a founder of rural sociology. Butterfield was a member of the Country Life Commission organized by President Theodore Roosevelt , and in 1919, Butterfield became the first president of the American Country Life Association. For the rest of his life, Hubert became involved in the Country Life Movement, which sought to find ways to make rural life more attractive to young people through scientific farming, cooperatives, and improved rural social institutions. This movement later informed the early agenda of agricultural extension in the U.S. Department of Agriculture when agricultural extension work was begun for white agents in 1902 and expanded to black agents in 1915.

In 1912, Hubert took a position as professor of agriculture at South Carolina State Agricultural and Mechanical College at Orangeburg, (now South Carolina State University). He soon became director of Agricultural Extension at the college, and director of the agricultural department.

At the outbreak of World War I, Hubert served on the South Carolina Food Administration Board and then went overseas to help direct the agricultural reconstruction of Europe.

Upon returning to the U.S. in 1920, Hubert accepted the directorship of the Department of Agriculture at Tuskegee Institute. He soon became supervisor of the Negro Division of the Agricultural Extension Service for Alabama. There, he made contacts with the philanthropists who would help him in his next position as president of a small, struggling black college in Savannah, Georgia.

President

Hubert succeeded Cyrus G. Wiley as president of the college in 1926. Under his leadership the college became a full-time degree-granting institution as the high school and normal programs were disestablished. The school also became a full member institution of the University System of Georgia in 1932 and the name was changed to Georgia State College that same year.

Hubert also used his relative proximity to Hancock County, Georgia, to attempt an experiment in rural community building along the themes of the Country Life Movement. In 1928, he organized the Association for the Advancement of Negro Country Life. With backing from northern philanthropists, he attempted to transform Springfield into a model black community, blending Butterfield's progressive rural idealism, the economic separatism of Marcus Garvey, and the apolitical pragmatism of Booker T. Washington. Under Hubert's guidance, the community organized a community health clinic, a cooperative community center, complete with swimming pool, a cooperative dairy and an enclosed poultry house. To maximize market efficiency, they bought seed and machinery cooperatively, and sold their agricultural products cooperatively. They attracted outstanding faculty to the high school and expanded it with grants from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation. At its height, eighty percent of the graduates of this high school continued on to college. Hubert used the community to host teacher training institutes for African American teachers in Georgia.

In the end, these efforts were not enough to withstand the market forces which were pushing out small farmers. Also, they were a victim of their educational success. College graduates from Springfield tended to look for professional employment in the cities, not on the farms. And in 1947, Hubert retired from Georgia State College due to tensions over his autocratic administrative style. A couple years later, he suffered a debilitating stroke. Hubert died on April 30, 1958.

Legacy

The Benjamin F. Hubert Technical Science Center on the university's campus houses the school's chemistry, computer science, and engineering departments and classrooms.

Suggested Reading

• Hall, Clyde W (1991). One Hundred Years of Educating at Savannah State College, 1890–1990. East Peoria, Ill.:Versa Press.
• Schultz, Mark, "Benjamin Hubert and the Association for the Advancement of Negro Country Life," in Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule: African American Landowning Families Since Reconstruction. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012, 83-105.
• Schultz, Mark. "A More Satisfying Life on the Farm: Benjamin F. Hubert and the Log Cabin Community," M.A. thesis, University of Georgia, 1989.