Drawing After a 1955 Jet Magazine Article Featuring American Teacher Association president Elmer T. Hawkins, former ATA President Lillian R. Johnson & Thurgood Marshall, then NAACP Chef Legal Council

Canvas: Soft pastel, charcoal & charcoal pencil on raw canvas, under clear leveling gel
Frame: Walnut & copper leaf
25 x 20 in | 2019

Elmer T. Hawkins was born in Catonsville, Maryland in 1904. Hawkins would go on to earn a bachelor's degree from Morgan State University in Baltimore in 1926. That same year Hawkins was hired as principal at the Henry Highland Garnet School in Chestertown, the elementary through high school for Black children in Kent County during segregation.

A decade later, Hawkins earned a master's degree from the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) and continued working toward a doctoral degree at several colleges and universities. Hawkins served as Garnet’s principal until the county’s school system was reformatted when Kent County integrated its schools, the last county in Maryland to do so.

Throughout his tenure, Hawkins was a member of several educational and civic organizations. Perhaps the two roles of greatest prominence were his terms as the National Education Association’s Maryland Branch Director and the American Teachers Association President.

After the integration of Kent County schools, Hawkins served as the principal of Chestertown Middle School until his retirement in 1972. Hawkins died the next year and was recognized by the community for the transformative work he did in education and particularly for the county’s African American children.

This image was drawn after a clipping from a 1955 issue of Jet Magazine covering the American Teachers Association’s convention that year, which was during Hawkins’ time as the ATA president. Along with Lillian R. Johnson, the ATA’s former president, Hawkins is pictured with NAACP lead legal council Thurgood Marshall who would go on to become the first African American Supreme Court Justice.