The Wild West of Yesteryear Column by Rachel Kovaciny
Sometimes, you can change the world simply by opening your door.
When Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood opened the door of her Sacramento home to welcome her first new students, she changed the world. She opened her school on May 29, 1854, because her son would not receive an education, and she refused to let him grow up ignorant. Black children were excluded from Sacramento public schools, so this concerned mother welcomed them into her home and taught them alongside her son.
Elizabeth Thorn was born free around 1828 in New York state. Her parents made sure she received a good education and taught her to value learning and knowledge. Elizabeth married a sailor named Joseph Scott, and the couple had a son named Oliver. The Thorn family headed to California toward the end of the California Gold Rush, hoping to build better lives. But Joseph died soon after they arrived in the rough mining camp called Hangtown (later Placerville).
Elizabeth Thorn Scott saw the goldfields were no suitable place to raise a fatherless boy. They moved to Sacramento, where they found a welcoming African American community, but no school that took black kids. Elizabeth taught Oliver at home and offered to teach the children of her friends and neighbors too. Soon she was earning $50 a month. While most of her students were children, some were adults who had a hunger for education.
Within three months, Elizabeth had Native American and Asian American students asking to be admitted to her classes, but her home could hold only fourteen students at a time. Two nearby churches, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and Siloam Baptist Chapel, agreed to let her hold classes in their buildings.
Her school was such a success, Sacramento added it to its official roster of public schools in 1855. It was the first African-American public school in the city. But although the city granted the Scott school official status, it did not offer it any public funding. Students paid tuition of a dollar each week to cover the school’s costs and to pay Elizabeth’s salary.
In the same year, Elizabeth remarried to Isaac Flood, born a slave in South Carolina, but freed in his early twenties. A decade older than Elizabeth, he too had a son from a previous marriage. Together, their blended family moved to Brooklyn, California, near Oakland. Black children in Brooklyn were also barred from public schools, so Elizabeth again opened one for them. She had no money for textbooks, so she designed her own curriculum.
Like in Sacramento, Elizabeth’s school was a success. She and Isaac had three children together over the next few years. In 1858, the family helped to start Shiloh African Methodist Episcopal Church, which was the first AME church in the Oakland area. By 1863, Elizabeth needed a bigger school again, and Shiloh AME Church purchased a former school for white children and used it as their church on the weekends and Elizabeth’s school during the week.
It was such a success that the local public school system opened new schools specifically for African-American, Asian-American, and Native American students in 1866. Soon, a new law was passed ensuring the right of all children, regardless of race, to receive a public education in Sacramento. The law specified that tax dollars should be used to educate all children in all public schools.
Elizabeth died suddenly in 1867 at 39 years old. Isaac continued her work of furthering educational opportunities for minority children and became the secretary of the Education Committee of the Colored Citizens of California. The Floods’ youngest daughter, Lydia, was only five when Elizabeth died, but she also became an important part of her mother’s legacy. Lydia Flood was one of the first African American children to attend Oakland’s schools when they were fully integrated in 1872. By 1880, new laws had passed desegregating all of California’s public schools.
Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood’s steady determination to make education available for all children, even if she had to open the door of her own home and invite students inside, was a major factor in changing the lives of people across the state of California. When she was excluded from the existing system, she simply went to work outside it, and changed history in the process. ♦
