"Joseph Carter Corbin" {March 26,1833-January 9,1911}

Journalist,served as Arkansas state superintendent of public instruction during Reconstruction and was the founder and president of the first African American institution of higher education in Arkansas.
He was born in Chilicote, Ohio,the eldest of free African American parents,William & Susan Corbin.He had eleven siblings.He attended school during the winter months,a common practice at the time.
In 1848 he traveled Louisville,Kentucky,assist Rev.Henry A.Adams as a teacher.Joseph taught school for some years and then attended Ohio University at Athens.He graduated with a B.A. in art in 1853 and an MA in art in 1856.An honorary doctoral degree was later conferred on Joseph by an unknown Baptist institution in the South.According to some sources,Joseph worked as a messenger in the Bank of Ohio Valley at Cincinnati and edited and published a newspaper,The Colored Citizen for eight years.
On September 11,1866,Joseph married Mary J.Ward,a Kentuck native,in Cincinnati.They had six children,two of whom lived to adulthood.In 1872,the family moved to Little Rock Arkansas,where Joseph worked as a reporter for the Arkansas Republican and later in the Little Rock Arkansas Rock Post Office.
From 1873-1875,Joseph served as Arkansas's superintendent of public instruction and, by virtue of holding that office,was president of the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees.As president he signed the contract for the construction of University Hall (now called Old Main),which was the first building at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.It was very unusual for an African American man to hold such a position during that time,but he was qualified and connected with the Republican Party establishment in power then in the South.
Joseph later taught mathematics,according to to the best to the best available evidence,for two years at Lincoln University in Jefferson City,Missouri,beginning in the fall of 1874.Joseph had worked on legislation to create in Arkansas for African American students.That legislation was adopted in 1873,but there was no time to put it in operation because Reconstruction was overthrown with the Brooks-Baxter War of 1874 and Republican state officials lost their jobs.Joseph did not sell his house in Little Rock,and when he was vacationing there,then-US Attroney General Augustus Hill Garland (later governor) encouraged him to open Branch Normal College of Arkansas Industrial University in Jefferson County.In 1875,Joseph was appointed principal of Branch Normal,a position he held until 1902.The school is now
the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
While at Branch Normal,he conducted teaching training institutes in Arkansas and Oklahoma,under the superintendent of public schools,believing that such courses inspired teachers to improve and gave them the opportunity to see exhibitions and new methods of teaching.With R.C.Childress,a teacher at Branch Normal,Joseph formed the Teachers of Negro Youth,the first state association for African American teachers in 1898.Joseph was the first president of that organization.Twenty years after his death,the organization became known as the Arkansas Teachers Association,which after integration,merged with the Arkansas Education Association in 1969.
Branch Normal's enrollment grew from seven students in 1875 to 1841 by 1894.A two-story brick building with classrooms and an assembly hall was constructed.A dormitory for girls was also built,and an industrial department was established with courses in sewing,typing,and printing.These were added between 1880 & 1900.Joseph's daughter worked as the sewing and industrial teacher for women,and his wife taught art at the school.Joseph himself wrote articles on mathematics and constructed mathematics puzzles that were published in Barnes' Educational School Vistors,the Mathematical vistor,the Mathematical Magazine,and the Mathematical Gazette.
Joseph spoke and read Greek,Latin,German,French,Italian,Hebrew,and Danish.He seems to have taught himself because he was very interested in languages.He taught Greek and Latin at Branch Normal until the curriculum was modified in 1889.Joseph
played and taught students to play piano,organ,and flute and trained the Normal School Choir,which was featured every commencement.A civic-minded man,Joseph served secretary and third Grand Master of the Arkansas chapter of the Prince Hall Masons and as vice president of the Colored Industrial Fair.
Joseph experienced conflict with the Board of Trustees of Branch Normal as well as the state legislature,which recommended he be fired in April of 1893 because of an investigation into alleged financial mismanagement of the school.He was dismissed in 1902.In 1905,he became principal of Merrill Public School in Pine Bluff.
Joseph died,in Pine Bluff and is buried in Chicago.