Pauline Ray Morton Finney

Pauline Ray Morton-Finney

Mrs. Pauline Ray Morton-Finney, AKA, veteran educator, community activist.

Born as the youngest daughter to November 19, 1889, in Geneva, New York, her father, Sanford, was 31, and her mother, Elizabeth, was 27.
A French and Literature teacher.
Morton Finney taught at Schools 4, 17, 36 and 42 & Crispus Attucks High School
During her career she also taught at Tuskegee Institute (Ala.); Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Mo, University of Minnesota.
Fortnightly Literary Club, and Phi Delta Kappa.

BAttle @SAGE

1911 - Fought at Cornell with Rosa Vassar about student housing.

Pauline Ray and Rosa Vassar had been denied dormitory rooms. Traveling a mile and a half from campus, they had “grown tired of climbing the hill or getting half frozen waiting for street cars.”

“I advised them to go somewhere else, as they would not find it pleasant for them living at Sage College,” asserting a common justification at the time among paternal liberals for de facto campus segregation. The majority of Cornell’s white female students (269 in total) petitioned the trustees in late March 1911 to officially bar African Americans.

Within days, Ray and Vassar, still desiring campus rooms, issued a statement. “We don’t seek social equality,” they declared. “If we could live at Sage College, as far as convenience and comfort goes, we would be as one with the rest of the girls, but in all things social we would be as separate as two fingers on one hand,”. A week later, Cornell president Jacob G. Schurman publicly unlocked the women’s dorm for black students.

SkeePhi Moment #2 -

Alpha Man, James B. Clark, speaks up for the women in their fight for adequate housing at Cornell.

1911 - Fought at Cornell with Rosa Vassar about student housing.

AKAs, Pauline Ray and Rosa Vassar had been denied dormitory rooms. Traveling a mile and a half from campus, they had “grown tired of climbing the hill or getting half frozen waiting for street cars.”

Learning of their predicament and that of others before them, in 1911 sophomore St. Lucia native James B. Clark passionately pleaded for justice in the Cornell Era , the student weekly. “Is that the way Mr. Cornell’s ideals being carried?” he asked. Gertrude Martin, advisor to Cornell’s women, announced that the university did not have a racial ban.

References:

2012_Book_TheBlackCampusMovement, 33

https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:641478

The SPHINX | Spring 1914 | Volume 1 | Number 1 191400101, Page 6

Instances of Service with multiple public references I could find:

1911 - Allowed to enter Sage dormitory.

1913 - Graduated from Cornell, 1913.

Pauline Ray was one of four African-American graduates, and the only African-American New Yorker, among the 858 members of Cornell's class of 1913.

1919 - 1920’s - Friends, co worker with Phyllis Wheatley Waters (designer of the sorority crest),

1921- marriage

1923 - 1929 charter member Lambda Omega - now Alpha Mu Omega with Phyllis Wheatley Waters

1928 - Health Play

1931 - 1932 - President of chapter of sorority.

1932 - Raising money as President of Alpha Mu Omega for scholarships.

1935 - National Council of Negro Women served with Mary McLeod Bethune

1936 - Pushed foreign education for everyone

-Woman's improvement club

1930's - Advisor to Eleanor Roosevelt

1941 - Entertained regional directors & other political powerhouses in her home

1941 - Latin, A basis for French and Spanish Study as evidenced by a teacher’s marks. - used for scholarly research, papers, grants, etc.

b.) She received her M.A. degree at Butler University

Unknown Dates:

school math programs
school business programs

1942 - Honorary Organizations

& at Butler was elected to Phi Kappa Phi national honorary society.

1956 - Retired from school 87

1963 - Did fundraisers for the Philippian Society of St. Philip's Episcopal Church.

.At our 50th and 60th Reunions she was an enthusiastic participant in all activities, though confined to a wheelchair.

1964 - Ex-Teacher Gets Award In Springfield SPRINGFIELD, 111.—

An award for outstanding service in the area of freedom of residence and open occupancy was received by Mrs. Pauline Morton-Firthey, 2918 Boulevard, Indianapolis, during a \two day conference here. Mrs. Morton-Finney, member of the Indianapolis Mayors Commission on Human Rights, was accompanied to the conference by her daughter, Miss Gloria Ann Morton-Finney, i school teacher.

*Justice finding at Butler*

*Scholarship created in husband's honor at Butler.*

1966 - a. sewing aprons for programs

B. Fights for rights of parents and kids in Kindergartener program

1967 - HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

1969 - Racist issues at Butler University with the police, she investigates with the Urban League.

1971 - 50th wedding anniversary

Before Death - Her program of teaching by TV was highly successful. For the past 4 years she has been principal of #56 Elementary School in Indianapolis, its first woman principal.

1975 - death

1978 - The Indianapolis Recorder, in its June 3 issue, last year, carried a half-page article on her work as a dedicated and innovative teacher.

Differing Account:

One version says the couple John and Pauline met at Lincoln.

After the war, he earned degrees in math, French, and history. At Lincoln College, he heard about a new French teacher, Pauline Ray, with a degree from Cornell University. Morton-Finney signed into her class and won her heart. They were married and moved to Indianapolis in 1922.

http://208.106.178.123/research/books/morton-finney.htm