William Henry Fouse Writes to W. E. B. Du Bois — Westerville Historical Society

Last time, we reviewed an exchange of letters between Otterbein President Walter G. Clippinger and notable civil rights crusader W. E. B. Du Bois. In researching those letters, I came across another letter to Du Bois, this one from another Westerville notable, William Henry Fouse (1868-1944). As Westerville Public Library has recently dedicated a display on Fouse, it seems pertinent to spend some time on his letter to Du Bois while the facts are fresh at hand.

Born in Westerville in a log cabin, Fouse grew up in a decrepit house once occupied by the Hanby family, now the Hanby House museum Fouse was the son of freed slaves Squire and Sally Fouse. His illiterate parents urged young William to get all the education he could. Fouse made his parents proud by becoming the first African American to graduate from high school in Westerville, followed by graduating from Otterbein University in 1893.

After teaching jobs in Corydon, Kentucky and Gallipolis, Ohio, Fouse landed a job as an instructor in the segregated schools of Lexington, Kentucky. In 1923, he became principal of Lexington’s Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School, where he stayed for the next 23 years. He died in Lexington in 1944.

Black education at the time was divided into camps. One group, led by Booker T. Washington, pushed for manual education for students and self-help. Another group, led by Du Bois and to which Fouse subscribed, saw higher education as the key to Black progress. Both saw the NAACP as a means to these ends.

The letter from Fouse to Du Bois, February 8,1926, touches on some of these themes. Fouse urged Du Bois’s newspaper, “The Crisis,” to report as news how successful some of his students were. He also mentions the need for more members for the NAACP. In a PS, he tells Du Bois that he was sending him three cents to cover the postage for sending the news items back!

William Henry Fouse was not a radical, nor a bridge burner. He did what work he could with the severely limited resources at hand. He was proud of his Westerville connections, and kept in touch with his Westerville and Otterbein background. His name graces Otterbein’s WIlliam Henry Fouse House of Black Culture, and his memory helps tell the story of the Hanby House.