Who Was Myrtilla Miner?

In 1851, with just one hundred dollars and a fierce belief in the power of education, Myrtilla Miner opened a school for Black girls in Washington, D.C.—at a time when teaching African American children was both dangerous and deeply unpopular.

A white woman from rural New York, Miner defied convention and hostility to create what would become a groundbreaking institution. Her goal was not just to teach reading and writing but to prepare young Black women to become teachers of their own communities, multiplying their impact in a society stacked against them.

Despite violent threats, public ridicule, and multiple forced relocations, she never gave up. “I would rather see [the school] suspended forever than continued on reduced principles,” she once wrote*, unwilling to lower her standards of excellence. Her students remembered her as demanding, principled, and utterly devoted. “They were everything to her,” one wrote. “She watched them with jealous care.”

Miner’s school became the Miner Normal School, later part of the foundation for what is now the University of the District of Columbia. Her legacy lives on not only in buildings and institutions, but in every effort to ensure that education is a right, not a privilege—especially for those historically denied it.

Today, Miner Elementary honors her name by continuing the fight for equity, excellence, and opportunity for all students—rooted in community, driven by love, and strengthened by courage.

*In 1885, Ellen N. O’Connor, who served as the secretary of Miner’s Institution for the Education of Colored Youth, wrote Miner’s memoir on her behalf. In the memoir, O’Connor detailed the experiences of Miner’s journey in education.