Don S.S. Goodloe
Encyclopedia
Rev. Don Speed Smith Goodloe (June 2, 1878 – 1959), born in Lowell, Kentucky, was a black teacher who became a pioneer for racial integration in the Unitarian church. He was the first principal of the Maryland Normal and Industrial School at Bowie for the Training of Colored Youth, also known as Maryland State Normal School No. 3—which later became Bowie State University
.
, a racially integrated school in Berea, Kentucky
, from 1893 to 1898. He completed his sophomore year in the Academy [Berea (KY) College Archives]. Berea College was founded in 1855 by Presbyterian abolitionist John G. Fee, who made the school's motto "God had made of one blood all peoples of the earth", quoting Biblical scripture.
Berea claims to have been the only racially integrated college in the South until 1904, when Kentucky
passed the Day Law, requiring all its schools to be segregated.
From 1898 to 1899, Goodloe attended a segregated normal school
for the training of black teachers–Knoxville College
in Knoxville, Tennessee
, which was founded by the United Presbyterian Church
. Here he met his future wife, Fannie Carey of Knoxville. They were married in Knoxville on June 9, 1899, after Fannie graduated from the college. Knoxville College offered classics, science, theology
, agriculture
, industrial arts
, and medicine
, as well as industrial training on the model of Hampton Institute, Booker T. Washington
's Tuskegee Institute, and later, Bowie Normal School
. Students at Knoxville cut timber, made bricks, and helped construct most buildings on campus.
fifty miles east of Knoxville. He held the post from 1899 to 1900. The Goodloes' first son, Don Burrowes, was born in Newport.Lists of American citizens traveling on S.S. Statendam and S.S. Columbus in 1939 give Don Burrowes's birthplace as Newport. The document is in the Goodloe Archives at Goodloe Memorial Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Bowie, Maryland.
In 1900, the Goodloes moved to Greenville, Tennessee, near [Nashville], where Goodloe was a teacher and principal at Greenville College
, a black normal school. Goodloe served there from 1900 to 1901. The next year they moved back to Lowell, where Goodloe taught from 1901 to 1903. Fannie gave birth to a second son, Wallis, in Lowell.
in 1904, so that Goodloe to complete his Bachelor of Arts
degree at Allegheny College
. He was also attracted to the Unitarian
seminary there, Meadville Theological School. In Meadville, with two boys—and Fannie pregnant with their third child, Carey—Goodloe was quick to find work to help support them. He then enrolled at both Allegheny College
and Meadville Theological School.
Goodloe was the fifth black to attend Meadville, and the first to graduate from the school. Others followed, and Goodloe can be said to have integrated the school. Although he did not face the angry resistance of George Wallace
standing in the schoolhouse doorway, he likely encountered racial prejudice from some students and faculty. Unitarian Universalist minister Reverend Mark Morrison-Reed discussed this period of Goodloe's life in his book "Black Pioneers in a White Denomination."
In a 1903 letter, Meadville president Franklin Southworth states that Goodloe was a "residing elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church", and that although
Goodloe came to Meadville even though he knew it was unlikely he would be ordained by a Unitarian church, because none would accept a black minister. President Southworth wrote, "I find this morning in putting the possibilities squarely before him that he has come here with his eyes open, knowing that it is probably not a good way into the orthodox ministry, but ready to take the consequences."
Southworth continued, "What the negroes need in...[Goodloe’s] judgement more than emotionalism in religion and more even than industrialism in education, is moral teaching and preaching." Goodloe proposed, said Southworth, "with the help of his wife, to start a small school composed of carefully selected and choice students, and to run the school along with his Sunday preaching."
Industrial Normal School and as a businessman in Danville—which was just twenty miles west of his family home in Lowell—from 1906 until 1910.
In 1910, the Goodloes left Danville, and Goodloe became vice-principal for a year at the Manassas Industrial School in Manassas, Virginia
.
and Washington, D.C.
, the Maryland Normal and Industrial School at Bowie for the Training of Colored Youth, also known as Maryland State Normal School No. 3.
When the Goodloes arrived at the school, it had a farmhouse, barn, chicken house, and a new brick building, the new building having been constructed by the State of Maryland
. The state had just taken over the funding of the Normal School and moved it from Baltimore to Bowie. The Goodloes lived in the brick building with the female students. Male students were housed in the loft
of the barn, previously used for horses and cows.
The Maryland Legislature was controlled by farmers in rural counties who were short on labor and feared that education would draw blacks away from the farm. The school's 1911–1912 catalog emphasized the importance of teaching skills to black students–carpentry, painting, blacksmithing, plastering, papering, and shoemaking
for the men, and domestic science, sewing and millinery work for the women. The school also aimed to prepare black teachers. The academic curriculum was equal to the ordinary high school course, with English, arithmetic, algebra
, history, geography, music, government, physics, botany, and Latin or German. There were six teachers; Mrs. Goodloe taught music.
In 1911, the school enrolled 58 students: 23 preparatory, 22 first-year, 6 second-year, and 7 third-year. Incoming students had to be at least 15 years old and to have completed "six grades in the best public schools of that state." Thus, for most of Goodloe’s tenure, the school was the only place in the state for black students to receive an education past the sixth-grade level. The first black high school in the state was started in Cambridge in 1917, followed by one in Baltimore, and then Annapolis. During the first year, the black elementary school at the corner of 11th Street and Normal School Road, just east of the old town of Bowie, was placed under the direction of the Normal School, thus giving teachers-in-training a model school for practice with 86 students.
In 1914, the school's name was changed to the Maryland Normal and Industrial School at Bowie.
The Goodloes decided to build a house for themselves in 1915. They hired John A. Moore, a black architect from Washington, D.C., to design the home, and black workers built the home. Lumber for the framing was cut, and bricks for the veneer were made, on the property. It was completed in 1916. In 1988, the Don S. S. Goodloe House
was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The house, built on the school grounds, is now the Goodloe Alumni House of Bowie State University.
In 1917, household chemistry, farm physics, and practice school work were introduced at the school. The terms "household" and "farm" may have been added to satisfy the farmers who controlled politics in Annapolis, while still allowing chemistry and physics to be taught.
In the fall of 1918, student enrollment declined sharply to 36 students as a result of World War I
, the international outbreak of influenza, and the high cost of living. In 1919, it bounced back up to 69 students, and the faculty was increased from 7 to 10. Goodloe established the first summer session for the school in 1920.
In 1920, the secretary of the Maryland State Colored Teachers’ Association sent Goodloe a letter of commendation "for the constant and progressive fight he has made toward enriching of the curriculum and the uplifting of the standards of the Bowie State Normal School."
During his tenure in Bowie, from 1911 until 1921, Goodloe established a faculty of ten members, an enrollment of 80 students, completion of the seventh grade as an admission requirement, a model school for student teachers at Horsepen Hill School–the first school for black children in Bowie, a summer session, a new dormitory for women, and renovation of living quarters for men. One additional year was added to the course, which led to a second-grade certificate and the opportunity for students to perform two years of additional work to earn a first-grade certificate. He made many pleas for additional funding before the legislature in Annapolis, which might have brought more rapid development to the school, but the state seemed to favor the white normal schools in Towson and Frostburg in its appropriations.
In 1921, at the age of 43, Goodloe resigned his post at Bowie. Goodloe told a friend of his in Washington that he resigned because he was just tired of being principal.
Goodloe’s liberal religion may have been a cause of conflict at the school. His successor as Principal, Dr. Leonidas S. James, according to his daughter, considered it “very important to be guided by sound philosophy in an environment that was sprinkled with many Christian liberals.” His daughter may have been referring to Goodloe.
, became teachers in Baltimore, and later in Washington. Donald B. Goodloe taught at Dunbar High School
.
In 1949, at the age of 71, Goodloe divorced Fannie and remarried.
He died in Washington, D.C. in 1959.
The 1911/12 school catalog also espouses a philosophy in harmony with that of Booker T. Washington. Goodloe states that "now and perhaps for many years to come, agricultural and industrial training are plainly indicated for the Negro by the situation itself...[It is important to teach] the negro boy and girl to love and live successfully the agricultural life..."
, a secular fraternal order.This membership would have been in the African-American Knights of Pythias. Like most fraternal orders, the Pythians admitted no blacks. This led blacks to establish the African-American Knights of Pythias and parallel versions of other orders (e.g., Masons and Odd Fellows). In 1906, when the white fraternal orders attempted to force the black counterparts out of existence, the black Pythians, 300,000 strong nationally, raised money, sued the white Pythians, and litigated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1912 ruled in their favor, agreeing that too much time had passed (40 years?) for the white order to retain exclusive use of its name and ritual. The case was the forerunner of NAACP lawsuits using the Supreme Court to overrule state courts, including Brown vs. Board of Education.
Pythians promoted friendship, universal peace, kindness, and tolerance, and had rituals based on Greek philosophy circa 400 B.C.
In 1916, Goodloe was included in Who’s Who in America.
In 2005, the Unitarian Universalist congregation located in Bowie, Maryland changed its name from the Bowie Unitarian Universalist Fellowship to the Goodloe Memorial Unitarian Universalist Congregation, in honor of Goodloe.
Bowie State University
Bowie State University , is a public university located on 355½ acres in unincorporated Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, north of the suburban city of Bowie. Bowie State is part of the University System of Maryland...
.
Education
Goodloe first attended the Grammar School and Academy of Berea CollegeBerea College
Berea College is a liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky , founded in 1855. Current full-time enrollment is 1,514 students...
, a racially integrated school in Berea, Kentucky
Berea, Kentucky
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 9,851 people, 3,693 households, and 2,426 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,055.4 people per square mile . There were 4,115 housing units at an average density of 440.9 per square mile...
, from 1893 to 1898. He completed his sophomore year in the Academy [Berea (KY) College Archives]. Berea College was founded in 1855 by Presbyterian abolitionist John G. Fee, who made the school's motto "God had made of one blood all peoples of the earth", quoting Biblical scripture.
Berea claims to have been the only racially integrated college in the South until 1904, when Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
passed the Day Law, requiring all its schools to be segregated.
From 1898 to 1899, Goodloe attended a segregated normal school
Normal school
A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...
for the training of black teachers–Knoxville College
Knoxville College
Knoxville College is a historically black liberal arts college in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Founded in 1875 by the United Presbyterian Church of North America, the school has an enrollment of approximately 100 students, and offers a Bachelor of Science degree in Liberal Studies and an Associate...
in Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, which was founded by the United Presbyterian Church
United Presbyterian Church of North America
The United Presbyterian Church of North America was an American Presbyterian denomination that existed for exactly one hundred years. It was formed on May 26, 1858 by the union of the Northern branch of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church with the Associate Presbyterian Church at a...
. Here he met his future wife, Fannie Carey of Knoxville. They were married in Knoxville on June 9, 1899, after Fannie graduated from the college. Knoxville College offered classics, science, theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, industrial arts
Industrial arts
Industrial Arts is an umbrella term originally conceived in the late 19th century to describe educational programs which featured fabrication of objects in wood and/or metal using a variety of hand, power, or machine tools...
, and medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, as well as industrial training on the model of Hampton Institute, Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
's Tuskegee Institute, and later, Bowie Normal School
Bowie State University
Bowie State University , is a public university located on 355½ acres in unincorporated Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, north of the suburban city of Bowie. Bowie State is part of the University System of Maryland...
. Students at Knoxville cut timber, made bricks, and helped construct most buildings on campus.
Early career
Goodloe began his career as principal of a black public school at Newport, Tennesseefifty miles east of Knoxville. He held the post from 1899 to 1900. The Goodloes' first son, Don Burrowes, was born in Newport.Lists of American citizens traveling on S.S. Statendam and S.S. Columbus in 1939 give Don Burrowes's birthplace as Newport. The document is in the Goodloe Archives at Goodloe Memorial Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Bowie, Maryland.
In 1900, the Goodloes moved to Greenville, Tennessee, near [Nashville], where Goodloe was a teacher and principal at Greenville College
Greenville College
Greenville College is located in Greenville, Illinois, a small Illinois city, located 45 miles east of St. Louis, Missouri on Interstate 70...
, a black normal school. Goodloe served there from 1900 to 1901. The next year they moved back to Lowell, where Goodloe taught from 1901 to 1903. Fannie gave birth to a second son, Wallis, in Lowell.
Meadville
The Goodloes moved to Meadville, PennsylvaniaMeadville, Pennsylvania
Meadville is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city is generally considered part of the Pittsburgh Tri-State and is within 40 miles of Erie, Pennsylvania. It was the first permanent settlement in northwest Pennsylvania...
in 1904, so that Goodloe to complete his Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
degree at Allegheny College
Allegheny College
Allegheny College is a private liberal arts college located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the town of Meadville. Founded in 1815, the college has about 2,100 undergraduate students.-Early history:...
. He was also attracted to the Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
seminary there, Meadville Theological School. In Meadville, with two boys—and Fannie pregnant with their third child, Carey—Goodloe was quick to find work to help support them. He then enrolled at both Allegheny College
Allegheny College
Allegheny College is a private liberal arts college located in northwestern Pennsylvania in the town of Meadville. Founded in 1815, the college has about 2,100 undergraduate students.-Early history:...
and Meadville Theological School.
Goodloe was the fifth black to attend Meadville, and the first to graduate from the school. Others followed, and Goodloe can be said to have integrated the school. Although he did not face the angry resistance of George Wallace
George Wallace
George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...
standing in the schoolhouse doorway, he likely encountered racial prejudice from some students and faculty. Unitarian Universalist minister Reverend Mark Morrison-Reed discussed this period of Goodloe's life in his book "Black Pioneers in a White Denomination."
In a 1903 letter, Meadville president Franklin Southworth states that Goodloe was a "residing elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church", and that although
Goodloe came to Meadville even though he knew it was unlikely he would be ordained by a Unitarian church, because none would accept a black minister. President Southworth wrote, "I find this morning in putting the possibilities squarely before him that he has come here with his eyes open, knowing that it is probably not a good way into the orthodox ministry, but ready to take the consequences."
Southworth continued, "What the negroes need in...[Goodloe’s] judgement more than emotionalism in religion and more even than industrialism in education, is moral teaching and preaching." Goodloe proposed, said Southworth, "with the help of his wife, to start a small school composed of carefully selected and choice students, and to run the school along with his Sunday preaching."
Danville
After graduating from both Allegheny College and Meadville Theological School in 1906, Goodloe resumed his career as a teacher at DanvilleDanville, Kentucky
Danville is a city in and the county seat of Boyle County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 16,218 at the 2010 census.Danville is the principal city of the Danville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Boyle and Lincoln counties....
Industrial Normal School and as a businessman in Danville—which was just twenty miles west of his family home in Lowell—from 1906 until 1910.
In 1910, the Goodloes left Danville, and Goodloe became vice-principal for a year at the Manassas Industrial School in Manassas, Virginia
Manassas, Virginia
The City of Manassas is an independent city surrounded by Prince William County and the independent city of Manassas Park in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Its population was 37,821 as of 2010. Manassas also surrounds the county seat for Prince William County but that county...
.
Maryland State Normal School No. 3
Later in 1910, Goodloe responded to the opportunity to build a new school near BaltimoreBaltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
and Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, the Maryland Normal and Industrial School at Bowie for the Training of Colored Youth, also known as Maryland State Normal School No. 3.
When the Goodloes arrived at the school, it had a farmhouse, barn, chicken house, and a new brick building, the new building having been constructed by the State of Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
. The state had just taken over the funding of the Normal School and moved it from Baltimore to Bowie. The Goodloes lived in the brick building with the female students. Male students were housed in the loft
Loft
A loft can be an upper story or attic in a building, directly under the roof. Alternatively, a loft apartment refers to large adaptable open space, often converted for residential use from some other use, often light industrial...
of the barn, previously used for horses and cows.
The Maryland Legislature was controlled by farmers in rural counties who were short on labor and feared that education would draw blacks away from the farm. The school's 1911–1912 catalog emphasized the importance of teaching skills to black students–carpentry, painting, blacksmithing, plastering, papering, and shoemaking
Shoemaking
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...
for the men, and domestic science, sewing and millinery work for the women. The school also aimed to prepare black teachers. The academic curriculum was equal to the ordinary high school course, with English, arithmetic, algebra
Algebra
Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials, equations and algebraic structures...
, history, geography, music, government, physics, botany, and Latin or German. There were six teachers; Mrs. Goodloe taught music.
In 1911, the school enrolled 58 students: 23 preparatory, 22 first-year, 6 second-year, and 7 third-year. Incoming students had to be at least 15 years old and to have completed "six grades in the best public schools of that state." Thus, for most of Goodloe’s tenure, the school was the only place in the state for black students to receive an education past the sixth-grade level. The first black high school in the state was started in Cambridge in 1917, followed by one in Baltimore, and then Annapolis. During the first year, the black elementary school at the corner of 11th Street and Normal School Road, just east of the old town of Bowie, was placed under the direction of the Normal School, thus giving teachers-in-training a model school for practice with 86 students.
In 1914, the school's name was changed to the Maryland Normal and Industrial School at Bowie.
The Goodloes decided to build a house for themselves in 1915. They hired John A. Moore, a black architect from Washington, D.C., to design the home, and black workers built the home. Lumber for the framing was cut, and bricks for the veneer were made, on the property. It was completed in 1916. In 1988, the Don S. S. Goodloe House
Don S. S. Goodloe House
The Don S. S. Goodloe House, a 1915–16 Colonial Revival style building veneered with brick, is significant for its association with Don Speed Smith Goodloe, the first principal of the Maryland Normal and Industrial School. The school, now Bowie State University, was Maryland's first postsecondary...
was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The house, built on the school grounds, is now the Goodloe Alumni House of Bowie State University.
In 1917, household chemistry, farm physics, and practice school work were introduced at the school. The terms "household" and "farm" may have been added to satisfy the farmers who controlled politics in Annapolis, while still allowing chemistry and physics to be taught.
In the fall of 1918, student enrollment declined sharply to 36 students as a result of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the international outbreak of influenza, and the high cost of living. In 1919, it bounced back up to 69 students, and the faculty was increased from 7 to 10. Goodloe established the first summer session for the school in 1920.
In 1920, the secretary of the Maryland State Colored Teachers’ Association sent Goodloe a letter of commendation "for the constant and progressive fight he has made toward enriching of the curriculum and the uplifting of the standards of the Bowie State Normal School."
During his tenure in Bowie, from 1911 until 1921, Goodloe established a faculty of ten members, an enrollment of 80 students, completion of the seventh grade as an admission requirement, a model school for student teachers at Horsepen Hill School–the first school for black children in Bowie, a summer session, a new dormitory for women, and renovation of living quarters for men. One additional year was added to the course, which led to a second-grade certificate and the opportunity for students to perform two years of additional work to earn a first-grade certificate. He made many pleas for additional funding before the legislature in Annapolis, which might have brought more rapid development to the school, but the state seemed to favor the white normal schools in Towson and Frostburg in its appropriations.
In 1921, at the age of 43, Goodloe resigned his post at Bowie. Goodloe told a friend of his in Washington that he resigned because he was just tired of being principal.
Goodloe’s liberal religion may have been a cause of conflict at the school. His successor as Principal, Dr. Leonidas S. James, according to his daughter, considered it “very important to be guided by sound philosophy in an environment that was sprinkled with many Christian liberals.” His daughter may have been referring to Goodloe.
Baltimore
After leaving the school, Goodloe moved to Baltimore, where a directory of black businesses listed him as President of Standard Benefit Society in 1923-24. Other records show him owning rental housing in Baltimore. Later he moved to Washington, and is said to have owned extensive property in the District. In 1924, he testified in Congress on behalf of a bill creating an inter-racial commission. Fannie and two of their sons, Wallis and Donald B., continued to live in the two-story house on Jericho Park Road. Both sons graduated from Howard UniversityHoward University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
, became teachers in Baltimore, and later in Washington. Donald B. Goodloe taught at Dunbar High School
Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (Baltimore, Maryland)
Paul Laurence Dunbar High School is a public secondary school located in Baltimore, Maryland.-History:Dunbar opened in 1918 as the Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary School, No. 101. It was named in memory of Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African-American poet, who had died ten years earlier...
.
In 1949, at the age of 71, Goodloe divorced Fannie and remarried.
He died in Washington, D.C. in 1959.
Philosophical views
According to his son Wallis, Goodloe was a persuasive speaker. His writing skills are demonstrated in his school catalogs and reports. The 1911–1912 Maryland State Normal School No. 3 catalog states,The 1911/12 school catalog also espouses a philosophy in harmony with that of Booker T. Washington. Goodloe states that "now and perhaps for many years to come, agricultural and industrial training are plainly indicated for the Negro by the situation itself...[It is important to teach] the negro boy and girl to love and live successfully the agricultural life..."
Honors
In 1915, Goodloe was honored by inclusion in Who's Who of the Colored Race, which listed essential bibliographical information, including his membership in the Knights of PythiasKnights of Pythias
The Knights of Pythias is a fraternal organization and secret society founded at Washington, DC, on 19 February 1864.The Knights of Pythias was the first fraternal organization to receive a charter under an act of the United States Congress. It was founded by Justus H. Rathbone, who had been...
, a secular fraternal order.This membership would have been in the African-American Knights of Pythias. Like most fraternal orders, the Pythians admitted no blacks. This led blacks to establish the African-American Knights of Pythias and parallel versions of other orders (e.g., Masons and Odd Fellows). In 1906, when the white fraternal orders attempted to force the black counterparts out of existence, the black Pythians, 300,000 strong nationally, raised money, sued the white Pythians, and litigated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1912 ruled in their favor, agreeing that too much time had passed (40 years?) for the white order to retain exclusive use of its name and ritual. The case was the forerunner of NAACP lawsuits using the Supreme Court to overrule state courts, including Brown vs. Board of Education.
Pythians promoted friendship, universal peace, kindness, and tolerance, and had rituals based on Greek philosophy circa 400 B.C.
In 1916, Goodloe was included in Who’s Who in America.
In 2005, the Unitarian Universalist congregation located in Bowie, Maryland changed its name from the Bowie Unitarian Universalist Fellowship to the Goodloe Memorial Unitarian Universalist Congregation, in honor of Goodloe.