Early Life and Education
Long had ambitions that were larger than what he saw of his future in Winston, where his father Joseph S. Long was a janitor in the school system, and his family was classified as black. Long was of mixed Lumbee and white ancestry on his mother Sally Carson Long's side, and mixed Cherokee, white and black ancestry on his father's. In that segregated, binary society, blacks had limited opportunities. Long first left North Carolina to work as an Indian in a "Wild West Show". Here he had a chance to learn from Cherokee elders. He continued to build on his Indian ancestry "to avoid the confines of racialism in the South and to secure a community of his choice."
In 1909, Long applied as a half-Cherokee to gain admittance to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and was accepted, partly because of his ability to speak Cherokee. He reduced his age to get admission and the chance for a good education. He graduated in 1912 at the top of his class, which included other prominent young Native Americans, such as Jim Thorpe and Robert Geronimo, a son of the famous Apache warrior.
Long entered the St. John's and Manlius Military academies in Manlius, New York with a full musical scholarship, based on his performance at the Carlisle School. He graduated in 1915. At that stage, he had begun to call himself Long Lance and had earned a nickname "chief" as the only Native American in his class. He decided to try for the West Point, and appealed to President Woodrow Wilson, whose office endorsed his application. He began there, but left in 1916 to enlist in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Montreal (237th Battalion, CEF)and was shipped to France to fight in World War I. After being wounded twice, he was transferred to a desk job.
Read more about this topic: Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“The shift from the perception of the child as innocent to the perception of the child as competent has greatly increased the demands on contemporary children for maturity, for participating in competitive sports, for early academic achievement, and for protecting themselves against adults who might do them harm. While children might be able to cope with any one of those demands taken singly, taken together they often exceed children’s adaptive capacity.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“she bit the towel and called on God
and I saw her life stretch out . . .
I saw her torn in childbirth,
and I saw her, at that moment,
in her own death and I knew that she
knew.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Whatever may be our just grievances in the southern states, it is fitting that we acknowledge that, considering their poverty and past relationship to the Negro race, they have done remarkably well for the cause of education among us. That the whole South should commit itself to the principle that the colored people have a right to be educated is an immense acquisition to the cause of popular education.”
—Fannie Barrier Williams (1855–1944)