Adella
Hunt,
the daughter of a black woman, was born in Sparta, Georgia, in February,
1863. Her father, Henry Hunt, a white farmer, served in the Confederate
Army during the Civil War. He did not
live with his eight children but he did help to pay for Adella to
be educated at Sparta's Bass Academy and Atlanta University.
In 1883 Adella taught at the American Missionary School before joining
Booker T. Washington and Olivia
Davidson at the Tuskegee Institute.
She taught English and Social Sciences and served as Tuskegee's first
librarian.
Adella married Warren Logan, a fellow teacher at the Tuskegee
Institute in 1888. Over the next few years she gave birth to nine
children. However, only six survived to adulthood.
A strong supporter of women's suffrage,
Adella led monthly discussions on the subject at the Tuskegee Woman's
Club. She also amassed a large library of reading materials about
suffrage. She also lectured at regional and national conferences of
the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs. Adella also
wrote about women's rights in Crisis,
a journal produced by William Du Bois
and the National Association
for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).
Adella fell ill in 1915 and was admitted to Battle Creek Sanitarium
for treatment. She returned to the Tuskegee
Institute after hearing that Booker T.
Washington was seriously ill. Adella's depression increased after
the death of Washington and on 12th December, 1915, she jumped to
her death from the top floor of one of the school's buildings.
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