Museum honors Vallejo’s first black teacher, Grace Logan Patterson

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Vallejo’s first black teacher might have been small in stature, but she was big in presence, friends and family agreed Saturday.

“I don’t think I ever remember (Grace Logan Patterson) raising her voice,” said Elissa Shanks Stewart, principal of South Vallejo elementary school that bears Patterson’s name.

Stewart was one of 30 or so people who attended a presentation Saturday by Jeanette Molson at the Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum. Molson is the niece of Patterson, who died in 1990 at age 81.

Molson hailed Patterson, her aunt, Nelie Lewis, and mother, Addie Logan Molson, as inspirations for all becoming the first black teachers in their respective districts. Addie Molson broke the color barrier in the North Sacramento district and Nelie Lewis in San Francisco and Hayward, Molson said.

“They figured out students needed guidance,” Molson said of the three sisters’ teaching strict teaching styles.

Patterson, who taught at a half-dozen Vallejo elementary schools during her 25-year career, was also well known as a civic leader. One of 10 children, she was long active in the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and the National Council of Negro Women.

Articles in the Times-Herald archives detail an energetic woman who readily gave herself to her community. She was appointed a teacher in 1949 — a full century after her forefather, Alvin Coffey, came to California enslaved.

who has spent much of her life researching the long histories of the Coffey and Logan families in California, read her favorite quote from her late aunt.

“There are so many opportunities for one to make his or her life count for something. All we need to do is to prepare ourselves and then be willing to do what we can,” Patterson was quoted as saying.

Patterson and her sisters were graduates of San Francisco State College (the future state university), where incredulous professors wondered why black women would bother getting an education degree, Molson said.

“My father always said it’s not always going to be this way,” Molson recalled a steadfast Patterson saying.

Patterson retired in 1974 and was 81 when she died in Oakland after a long illness.

Several Patterson Elementary students attended Saturday’s event. A few knew little of their school’s namesake and were surprised at her historic significance.

“I didn’t know she was the first African-American teacher,” said fifth-grader Ivan Herre, 10.

Herre and the other kids there agreed how important it was to see themselves reflected by those who teach them.

“I think she would have been a great teacher to everyone if she were still alive,” fourth-grader Sierra Stewart, 9, said wistfully.

The principal of Patterson Elementary said children need role models like Grace Logan Patterson, who Elissa Stewart often invokes when she sees kids in her office for discipline reasons. The reasons why Patterson became a teacher remain the same, Stewart said.

“It hasn’t changed,” she said.

Molson’s talk was in conjunction with the museum’s new exhibit celebrating black history in the North Bay in honor of Black History Month. For a list of upcoming events, visit the museum’s Web site at www.vallejomuseum.org or call at (707) 643-0077.

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