Joseph Buckner Killebrew
[JOSEPH BUCKNER KILLEBREW], (1831-1906) was born in Montgomery County near [Clarksville, Tennessee]. He was raised by a session of relatives when his mother died at the age of four. As a young man he took charge of the family farm. He was opposed to the session attitudes of his fellow southerners and searched for ways to improve the situation of his slaves as well as his farm. During the US Civil War, Killebrew knew that if slaves would be able to survive the emancipation process they must be trained in the ways of business. Killebrew started the process by paying his slaves a wages for their labor, and he began to teach his slaves reading, writing and math skills for their functioning in a free society.
Killebrew attended college and was deeply interested in education, agriculture, and geology. In 1851, Killebrew entered Franklin College, but soon exhausted his funds. He accepted a position teaching mathematics at the Clarksville school of John D. Tyler. In 1853, a family friend offered to finance his college education at the institution of his choice. Killebrew chose the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he graduated in June 1857.
Killebrew was a progressive in the south during reconstruction, realizing that his fellow Tennesseans needed to posses greater agriculture knowledge and skills if the south was to ever truly rebuild. Killebrew realized that a new south could only truly arise from the foundation of an education system that sought to offer equal education to all of its citizens. He authored the education reform bill in Tennessee. This innovative law that dared to make education available to rich and poor alike.
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