Clarence Edward Gantt
1903 - 1968
When seven year-old Clarence Edward Gantt was attending Garrison School in 1910, he probably never imagined that someday he would become its beloved principal and eventually oversee Garrison’s closing when the Liberty School District completed the desegregation process in 1958.
Clarence and his siblings were third generation Garrison School students. After graduating, Clarence attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, where he played football, ran track, and was on the debate team. During the summer of 1928, Clarence married Florine Alberta Rollins and the couple taught school in Oklahoma. In 1932, Garrison’s Principal James “Prof” Gay hired his former student Clarence as a teacher who eventually replaced Gay upon his retirement. Clarence was living in Liberty when the birth of his daughter Edrie Joy Gantt was announced in Sedalia, Missouri, where his wife lived with her family in 1933. A divorce followed in 1935, and Clarence married Virginia Hudson the following year.
Principal Gantt had to contend with the shortcomings that resulted from racist segregation policies in education at the time. Garrison students were issued outdated textbooks that were worn out by white students. There was no cafeteria in the building, so each day, a student had to walk the lunch money to the white high school and submit the order for lunches to be brought to Garrison. The school only taught students up to the 10th grade when Liberty High School taught all the way to the 12th grade for the white students. Any Garrison student who wished to attend another two years had to attend Lincoln High School in Kansas City, Missouri.
Principal Gantt (2nd row, far right) with his students at Garrison School
In spite of this adversity, Principal Gantt’s Garrison School thrived under teachers who demanded excellence from their students. Students learned a standard curriculum, but also studied African American and African history. Garrison was one valued part of a close community who attended school, church, social clubs, and raised their children together.
Clarence Gantt was a role model for the Garrison students, but he was also a leader in a broader sense. He was a supervisor of the Ruth Moore Memorial Park and Liberty’s recreation program, and was a member of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge. He taught adult education classes at Central High School, and was a volunteer worker for the Clay County Human Resources Development Corporation.
In 1938, Principal Gantt successfully pushed for a local bond issue that funded the Garrison building expansion by adding a gymnasium-auditorium. When Garrison closed in 1958 after the students were gradually integrated into the white schools, all of the African American Garrison faculty lost their jobs. Principal Gantt was offered a job as study hall monitor at Liberty High School. Although that galling demotion was beneath him, he gave no indication that it was insulting. Rather, he accepted the position so that he could keep an eye on his Garrison kids while they endured the difficult adjustment into the white-dominated school system. As former student Shelton Ponder observed, “When he went to the high school, he carried that same demeanor. He wasn’t angry and did not walk with his shoulders drooped. He stood as he always stood.”