Stephen Handy Long was born in Pocomoke City, Maryland in 1865. Early in life, Long joined his uncle in Massachusetts, where Long received an exceptional education within the Boston Public School System. In 1893, Long earned a BA in legal studies from Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), the nation’s first HBCU to grant liberal arts degrees. Records recently found in Lincoln University’s archives reveal that Long was an exceptional college student. In fact, in his senior year, archival data document that Long’s grades averaged 93%. After completing his undergraduate studies at Lincoln with several employment options in sight, Long elected to return to his native Eastern Shore of Maryland, where he accepted elementary school teaching appointments first in Somerset County (Fairmount, Maryland) and, finally, in Worcester County (Pocomoke City). Owing largely to Long’s success as an educator, in 1914, the Worcester County Board of Education appointed Professor Long as its first Supervisor of Colored Schools. Professor Long held that position with distinction until September13, 1921, when he met an untimely death at the hands of John Pilchard, a white farmer. Reports suggest that Professor Long, in his official capacity as the educational lead for Colored children in Worcester County, alerted the Baltimore City Orphans’ Court that the Pilchard family had failed to grant two Black boys their legal right to attend elementary school regularly, which led to the orphans’ being legally extracted from the Pilchard farm.
Racial waves during the first quarter of the 20th century were turbulent. Indeed, just four months after the Tulsa Race Riots, during which white vigilantes destroyed a prosperous Black community and killed scores of Black citizens, John Pilchard, a white Stockton farmer, would fatally stab Professor Long in the presence of his 12-year-old daughter, Jessie, as the two were returning home from the Annual Pocomoke City Colored Fair. At his funeral, hundreds of mourners gathered to celebrate the distinguished educator’s life. In fact, over 2,000 Maryland citizens, both Black and white, attended Professor Long’s Homegoing Service held at the Mt. Zion Methodist Episcopal Church in Pocomoke City. The Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper (September 23, 1921) reported that Long’s funeral was so well attended that Mt. Zion officials requested that Long’s casket be displayed on the church’s lawn. The Baltimore Afro further noted that Long’s casket was covered with flowers, marking the high regard that Eastern Shore citizens held for this educational giant. Professor Long’s murderer, John Pilchard, served one year of a three-year sentence in the Maryland House of Correction because on January 12, 1923, then-governor Albert Cabell Ritchie pardoned Pilchard, expunging the felon’s criminal record forever.
In 1937, 16 years after Long was murdered, the Worcester County Board of Education named Pocomoke’s segregated elementary school in Professor Long’s honor. In 1970, that school, Stephen Long Elementary, was closed and replaced by a new educational facility that was identified as the Pocomoke Middle School. The new school was constructed merely yards from where the historic Stephen Long Elementary facility was situated. To-date, the new elementary/middle school does not honor Professor Stephen Long’s legacy, that is, with the name of a man whom many regard as a martyr and who, between 1914 and 1921, transformed with distinction the educational landscape for thousands of Black Worcester County citizens.
