Tiffany Cole
Born on February 4, 1855, in Winchester, Virginia, to free Black parents, George Ambrose Newman became a dedicated educator and an early leader in Harrisonburg’s African American community. Despite a rich family history and well-documented adulthood, little is known about Newman’s formative years. When Newman was a youth, his parents likely hired him out to a local plantation owner, an experience described (and even dramatized) in his semi-autobiographical novel A Miserable Revenge: A Story of Life in Virginia. He learned to read and write at an early age and also pursued his interest in music. Sometime prior to 1873, Newman moved to Washington, DC, where, according to family tradition, he completed his schooling at a preparatory high school.
Newman’s career in education began in 1873, when he accepted a position as a schoolmaster in what is now Fauquier County near Linden, Virginia. In 1875, Newman moved to Harrisonburg to serve as principal of the local African American school. Despite being uncredentialed, he served over a period of thirty-three years as a teacher and administrator in the city’s segregated school system—chiefly at the Effinger Street School—and also held teaching positions in Augusta County and, according to his obituary, in West Virginia. To fill periodic gaps in teaching appointments, Newman held positions as an agent of the Internal Revenue Service and as a Deputy US Marshal.
George Newman’s impact as a community leader was equally significant. In 1878, he served as Grand Secretary of his Masonic order, the Independent Sons and Daughters of Purity, and in 1898, he traveled to Indiana as part of an integrated delegation of the Knights of Pythias. In 1901, Newman was elected by the Republicans as a delegate to the state convention in Roanoke. Locally, he frequently provided legal advice and financial assistance to members of the African American community. Along with Ulysses G. Wilson, local educator and half-brother of Lucy F. Simms, Newman also paid the poll taxes of local Black men in response to disenfranchisement tactics during segregation. Newman was a writer, poet, musician, minister, and religious leader. He was a member of the Mt. Zion Lodge of Masons in Staunton and the John Wesley United Methodist Church (variously known as John Wesley Methodist Church and John Wesley M. E. Church) in Harrisonburg.
George Newman married Margaret “Maggie” Dallard (1859–1887), daughter of Ambrose and Harriett Dallard, in 1877, and together they had four children. After Maggie’s death in 1887, Newman married Maggie’s sister, Mary F. Dallard (1869–1968), reportedly following a Ghanaian tradition that had been maintained by some African American communities. They had ten children. Six of Newman’s children also pursued teaching and began their careers in Rockingham County.
George Ambrose Newman is remembered as a trailblazing member of Harrisonburg’s early African American community and as a respected educational leader. Per his obituary, Newman had started his sixty-sixth reading of the Bible just months prior to his death. Newman passed away on April 6, 1944, at the age of eighty-nine. He is buried alongside his second wife, Mary Dallard Newman, in Harrisonburg’s historic Newtown Cemetery. The Dallard-Newman House, the historic home of the Newman and Dallard families, was one of the few houses in Harrisonburg’s Northeast Neighborhood to survive the “urban renewal” upheaval in the 1960s.
Further Reading
Ghant, Walter Allen. “Colored Teachers in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, Virgina, 1900–1940: Building Lives for Community Improvement and Societal Progression.” Master’s Thesis. James Madison University, 2008.
Toliver, Ruth M. Keeping Up with Yesterday. Published by the author, 2009.
