John Wesley Gilbert (July 6, 1863
– November 18, 1923) was an American
archaeologist, educator, and
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
missionary to the
Congo. Gilbert was the first graduate of
Paine College
Paine College is a private, historically black Methodist college in Augusta, Georgia. It is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Paine College offers undergraduate degrees in the liberal arts, bu ...
, its first African-American
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...
, and the first African-American to receive an advanced degree from
Brown University.
Early life
Gilbert was born to slaves in
Hephzibah, Georgia
Hephzibah () is a city in southern Richmond County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is part of the Augusta metropolitan area. The population was 4,011 at the 2010 census. ''Hephzibah'' is a poetic name used in the Book of Isaiah ( 62:4) to refer ...
, though he grew up in nearby
Augusta. He was named after
John Wesley, the founder of
Methodism
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's br ...
.
Until he left Georgia, Gilbert "spent half the year on the farm and the other half in the public schools of the city of Augusta." After finishing public school, Gilbert enrolled in the Augusta Institute (later the Atlanta Baptist Seminary, a predecessor of
Morehouse College).
In 1884, he enrolled in the newly opened Paine Institute (later known as
Paine College
Paine College is a private, historically black Methodist college in Augusta, Georgia. It is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Paine College offers undergraduate degrees in the liberal arts, bu ...
), which had been established as an "interracial" venture between the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) and the
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church
The Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church is a historically black denomination within the broader context of Wesleyan Methodism founded and organized by John Wesley in England in 1744 and established in America as the Methodist Episcopal ...
(CME). George Williams Walker, the MECS minister and president of Paine from 1884–1910, became a lifelong mentor to Gilbert; upon Walker's death in 1911, Gilbert wrote to Walker's widow that "Dear Dr. Walker…was as much of a father to me as he was a husband to you."
In 1886, Gilbert was given financial assistance to transfer into the junior class of Brown University. There, he was among the first ten black students to attend the school and among the forty African-Americans to graduate from any northern university between 1885 and 1889.
Gilbert received his bachelor's degree from Brown in 1888. He then moved back to Georgia, where in 1889 he married Osceola Pleasant, a graduate of Fisk University and the Paine Institute.
Work in Greece
While at Brown, Gilbert received a scholarship to attend the
American School of Classical Studies
, native_name_lang = Greek
, image = American School of Classical Studies at Athens.jpg
, image_size =
, image_alt =
, caption = The ASCSA main building as seen from Mount Lykavittos
, latin_name =
, other_name =
, former_name =
, mo ...
in
Athens, Greece—at the encouragement of
Albert Harkness, a prominent classicist and professor at Brown and a founding member of the American School’s Managing Committee.
[Adelaide M. Cromwell, Martin Kilson, ''Apropos of Africa: Sentiments of Negro American Leaders on Africa from the 1800s to the 1950s'', Routledge, 1969, pp 116., ] He was the first African American to attend that school, and remained the only one to have done so through 1901.
[Henry F. Kletzing, et al. ''Progress of a Race'', J. L. Nichols., 1903. pp. 520.] During his time in the country, Gilbert was given an award for "excellence" in Greek.
He was there from 1890-1891 and conducted archaeological excavations on
Eretria
Eretria (; el, Ερέτρια, , grc, Ἐρέτρια, , literally 'city of the rowers') is a town in Euboea, Greece, facing the coast of Attica across the narrow South Euboean Gulf. It was an important Greek polis in the 6th and 5th centur ...
with John Pickard, producing the first map of Ancient Eretria. Their work supposedly uncovered the "tomb of Aristotle," a claim that was quickly disproven.
![Tomb of Aristotle excavation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Tomb_of_Aristotle_excavation.jpg)
For his work in Greece, Gilbert in 1891 became the first African-American to receive an advanced degree from Brown. He received his master's thesis on the topic of "The Demes of Attica" (now unfortunately lost). In 1897, Gilbert was honored with election to the
American Philological Association.
Work as an educator
In 1891, Gilbert returned to
Augusta, Georgia
Augusta ( ), officially Augusta–Richmond County, is a consolidated city-county on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia. The city lies across the Savannah River from South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Georgi ...
and began to teach
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, French, German, Latin, and Hebrew at his former school, Paine College.
His appointment caused an uproar, since he was the first black faculty member at Paine. Other faculty decried "the evil" of this "revolutionary measure."
His appointment was also important because of his classical education: as a Paine professor later put it, "this was to be a college, and to be a college, you had to teach Greek and Latin."
He was remembered at Paine most of all as "an exacting teacher" who "would not tolerate weak excuses," since "he knew from personal experience that only diligence and plain hard work produced scholars."
He is supposed to have said: "If you would like to realize your own importance put your finger in a bowl of water, take it out, and look at the hole."
Students later recalled that
the exacting scholar corrected a startled student for his use of a Greek verb. The student, abashed, protested, “But that’s exactly the way it is in the textbook.” Gilbert, they report, replied, "Then the textbook is wrong. Bring it here." The textbook was wrong as Gilbert immediately pointed out to the publisher. It was changed in the next edition.
In 1913, Gilbert was appointed the president of
Miles College
Miles College is a private historically black college in Fairfield, Alabama. Founded in 1898, it is associated with the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME Church) and a member of the United Negro College Fund.
History
Miles College bega ...
. He served in that post for one year before returning to Paine College.
Work as a missionary
In 1911 and 1912, Gilbert undertook a mission to the
Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo (french: Congo belge, ; nl, Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960. The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964.
Colo ...
with
Walter Russell Lambuth
Walter Russell Lambuth (November 10, 1854 – September 26, 1921) was a Chinese-born American Christian bishop who worked as a missionary establishing schools and hospitals in China, Korea and Japan in the 1880s.
Birth and family
Born in Shang ...
, a (white) bishop of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Gilbert believed that "Africa needs thousands of teachers, graduates of Atlanta, Fisk, Moorehouse, Paine, and similar institutions; for, besides possessing by nature the race instinct, they are better suited physically for work in Africa than their white brethren." Similarly, Lambuth argued that southern Methodists were suited to successfully evangelize Africa: "We are born and brought up with black men. They understand us, and we understand them. We understand their good qualities and their bad qualities."
Lambuth and Gilbert cooperated well; Lambuth praised Gilbert's language skills, writing that his translations were "so well done that the Colonial Minister, upon my subsequent visit to Brussels, inquired who wrote the letters, and remarked that they were the most correct and elegantly expressed among those received at his office from one who was not a native of either France or Belgium."
Gilbert's passion for languages and sense of the “Southern Negro’s debt and responsibility to Africa” even led him to compile a vocabulary and grammar for
Tetela, a language spoken in the area of their work.
![LambuthandGilbert](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/LambuthandGilbert.jpg)
Gilbert and Lambuth successfully established a church and school in the village of Wembo-Nyama. This school would later educate
Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Émery Lumumba (; 2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese politician and independence leader who served as the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as the Republic of the Congo) from June u ...
, the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and an icon of anticolonialism and pan-Africanism.
In its current form as the Patrice-Emery-Lumumba University of Wembo-Nyama, this school is supported by American Methodists to this day.
The mission of Gilbert and Lambuth was remembered as an exemplar of interracial partnership.
However, even from the beginning there were "persistent rumors that the Belgian government was not highly cordial to Gilbert’s return."
Rather than a joint mission of the (black) CME and (white) MECS, by the 1920s and 30s the Methodist missionaries in Wembo-Nyama were exclusively white.
Sylvia Jacobs argues that "probably the greatest obstacle was the Belgian government, which refused to issue permits to African Americans seeking to reside in the Belgian Congo" because of prior agitation against
Belgian atrocities.
Reception and legacy
Gilbert was ill by 1921 and died on 18 November 1923 in Augusta, Georgia. Soon after his death, ''The Spirit of John Wesley Gilbert'' was published as a kind of eulogy. The author outlined the "Gilbert program … in the following sentences: No two races can live together, interlarded, under the same laws, but with different race marks and proclivities, in anything like peace without a program of 'good will' and interracial understanding."
Gilbert's contemporary reception and later legacy were complex. His beliefs in interracial partnership were controversial at the time. African-American newspapers and magazines — including ''The Horizon'', edited by
W. E. B. Du Bois — criticized his political views. ''The Appeal'' wrote that Gilbert would "make the Afro-American … just as he was in the times of slavery, perfectly willing to accept the white man as massa," going on to write that "in the opinion of THE APPEAL, Rev. (?) Gilbert is a flunkey who deserves the contempt of every self-respecting Afro-American."
But Gilbert also had an immense positive influence as an educator and a role model, including on another prominent African American from Augusta,
John Hope, the first black president of
Morehouse College and one of the founding members of the
Niagara Movement
The Niagara Movement (NM) was a black civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group of activists—many of whom were among the vanguard of African-American lawyers in the United States—led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. ...
.
Gilbert's alma mater, Paine College, dedicated a chapel in honor of him and Bishop Lambuth in 1968.
In 1941, the city of Augusta built a low-income housing complex across the street from Paine College.
[Johnny Edward]
"MCG plans memorial to Gilbert Manor namesake"
''Augusta Chronicle
''The Augusta Chronicle'' is the daily newspaper of Augusta, Georgia, and is one of the oldest newspapers in the United States still in publication. The paper is known for its coverage of the Masters Tournament, which is played in Augusta. The ''C ...
'', January 29, 2009. Retrieved 01-29-2009. In honor of Gilbert, the complex was named Gilbert Manor. The housing was closed in 2008 in order to make room for expansion of the
Medical College of Georgia
The Medical College of Georgia (often referred to as MCG) is the flagship medical school of the University System of Georgia, the state's only public medical school, and one of the top 10 largest medical schools in the United States. Established ...
.
[Stephanie Toon]
Neighbors now scattered about
Augusta Chronicle
''The Augusta Chronicle'' is the daily newspaper of Augusta, Georgia, and is one of the oldest newspapers in the United States still in publication. The paper is known for its coverage of the Masters Tournament, which is played in Augusta. The ''C ...
, January 1, 2009. Retrieved 01-28-2009
In 2020, the
American School of Classical Studies at Athens
, native_name_lang = Greek
, image = American School of Classical Studies at Athens.jpg
, image_size =
, image_alt =
, caption = The ASCSA main building as seen from Mount Lykavittos
, latin_name =
, other_name =
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, m ...
named the newly renovated Student Center after Gilbert.
A comprehensive biography of Gilbert's life and work was published in January 2022 titled ''The First Black Archaeologist: A Life of John Wesley Gilbert'' by John W. I. Lee.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilbert, John Wesley
African-American archaeologists
1864 births
1923 deaths
American educators
Brown University alumni
African-American educators
American School of Classical Studies at Athens
People from Hephzibah, Georgia
American archaeologists
American expatriates in the Belgian Congo
20th-century African-American people