Julia B. Hooks

Born: 1852

Died: 1942

Julia B. Hooks, the grandmother of NAACP head Benjamin Hooks began her early life as a musical child prodigy. Born a free black woman in Kentucky Julia Britton Hooks is well remembered as beginning social services in the city of Memphis. She served as both teacher and principal at the public Virginia Avenue School. Dissatisfied with the state of public education she soon began her own private school which was called the Hooks Cottage School.

When the Orphans and Old Folks Home was established in Memphis Mrs. Hooks paid all of its debts in full through three years of public performances.

Along with her husband Charles F. Hooks, Julia was given charge of the detention home for juvenile black offenders in 1902. She continued to support that institution even after her husband was murdered by one of the detainees. She taught music as well, founding the Hooks School of Music in Church's Auditorium. She even taught harmony to a you W.C. Handy. She was well known for her essay “The Duty of the Hour“ and for being a charter member of the Memphis Branch of the NAACP. Sixty years later her grandson Benjamin became National Executive Director of the NAACP.

In 1895 Mrs. Hooks was included in James T. Haley's Afro-American Encyclopedia. The article is printed in full below. It is of particular interest as it was written by one of her contemporaries during the prime of her life.

JULIA ANN AMANDA MOOREHEAD BRITTON HOOKS. The writer of the article, "Duty of the Hour," was born May 4, 1852, at the Capital of the State known as the "Dark and Bloody Ground," by the side of one of its lofty land elevations, near the banks of the Kentucky river. Her parents, Laura Marshall and Henry Harrison Britton, were descendants of some of the old Southern aristocracy and Indian blood. Her mother, though born a slave, was liberated at the age of sixteen by her mistress, who was also a very near relative of her father, who was no less a personage than the Hon. Thomas F. Marshall, of Kentucky, the great and renowned statesman. She received at the hands of her owner a splendid education, and was, therefore, left a free girl, above the average colored girls of the South. Her intelligence gave her great advantage. The writer's father was free born, but a descendant also of great lineage.

She was raised in Lexington, the garden spot of Kentucky, and at a very early age was given every advantage of a high learning, having been sent to Louisville in company with her older sister, and placed in the late Mr. Wm. Gibson's school for colored youths, in 1859. Remaining there until the spring of 1860, just at the outbreak of the great civil strife, she was taken back to her home and then placed under the tuition of an English lady in music, having received some instruction from her mother, who was a gifted singer and accomplished musician. Having inherited from her mother great musical gifts, she very soon became famous as Kentucky's little musical prodigy, performing at the age of nine years many works of the Masters, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and others. Indeed, she performed at the age of eight and a half years Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique with all the beauty and smoothness of an artist. Her parents were free, and standing high in the social scale of their race, were greatly esteemed and respected by the aristocracy of Lexington, and she and her mother were often seen and heard in parlor concerts by the very highest society, among whom it is pleased to be noted Mrs. Gen. Wm. Preston, Mrs. Gen. Morgan, Mrs. Hunt Dudley, and other grand women who have long since gone to the beautiful beyond.

The writer likes to refer to those dear old happy days of her childhood, when but a child, she and her mother played and sang for their good old friends. She often loves to relate the sad experiences of the scenes and times of the war when they would go to comfort the hearts of their white friends by the singing of the dear old songs, "My Old Kentucky Home," "Old Dog Tray," etc. She, too, likes to tell the stories of the times she would, when but a child, write passes for the slaves who would come to the singing class of her mother and get so deeply engaged in the study that they would forget about the hour, and would be afraid to start home without the "pass to show Mr. Paterole Man." It is sad to listen to her story about helping her mother to teach the slave children in the old garret, who would come to learn with their old "blue back speller" hid in false pockets. This she did with a childish relish. She would often travel around on concert tours with her mother, and would be forced, because of accommodation, to call her own mother Miss Laura. How strange, to think of a little colored girl calling her own mother mistress because her color differed. We have learned that there was never a concert programme complete in Lexington without the Britton's name thereon among their people, and they were often largely attended by the best white people of Lexington. She was pronounced by the press of Kentucky the "Wonder of the Age," being able at the age of nine to read at sight intelligently the most difficult selection for the piano. We might go on telling farther of her early fame, but space forbids.

Having received fine intellectual and musical qualifications, she has successfully taught in the following States: Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee for nearly twenty-eight years, and though her life has been surrounded with many trying difficulties, she enjoys the distinction of being a true woman to her race, a great and successful teacher, an earnest Christian worker, neglecting, oftentimes, for the benefit of humanity, her own personal welfare. Yes, we are told that her life has been one of many privations, disappointments, aspirations, struggles, defeats, temptations, and victories, as she has endeavored to push forward in the race of life. She has often been made the victim of the most cruel injustices, because of racial prejudice, yet as a woman, having a common identity of interest in all that will help to build up the Southland and uplift her race, her sex, and the body politic of her country; with all other American citizens, she has done much for herself, her race, her sex, and her home, and is building up for her people a name that will benefit them more than words can tell. Indeed, she has borne with a fortitude unsurpassed for bravery, what no other woman has been known to bear. She oft hath turned the other cheek to her enemies and oppressors, and though crushed and tossed about, because of the whims of American prejudice, she has quietly submitted to injustices of the severest nature, and yet still blesses the hand of her oppressors for the sake of her race; and she has never lost her patriotism. She often is heard to say, "Take your wounds to the great Healer of wounds." She is a firm believer in prayer, and can relate many strange and miraculous answers to her prayers for the removal of obstacles. She truly believes in liberty and equality, but is not willing to think that liberty means freedom to do wrong, nor that equality means the invasion of social realms.

She lives in hope that soon, and very soon the "missing stone" will be placed in the "building," and that when placed in it will be so riveted that it can never be displaced by any concerted blow of "wrong hammers." We invite a careful reading of her article, "Duty of the Hour."

Source: Internet