A visit to Greenville's segregated past

Allen School - 6
Allen School
In common with the rest of the south, the black and white children in Greenville County schools once went to separate schools under the "separate but equal" doctrine.  That changed in 1970 when Greenville County Schools began court ordered integration. The all-white schools ceased to be all-white, and the all-black schools were closed (with a few exceptions). Yesterday I visited two of these former schools inside the city of Greenville.

Update 1/30/2016: Allen School has been torn down.

Allen School is situated on Cemetery Street near Richland Cemetery. According to a history of the school, this school was built in 1936 with funding from the WPA.
Allen School - 2 Allen School - 3
Allen School came to my attention when looking for information about Sterling High. A Google search result returned a link to a book about Greenville County from the Black America series. While reading about Sterling High from the preview, I read over the rest of the chapter and found out about Allen School. This book is now on my wishlist.

The school closed in 1970 due to the end of segregation, and sold off in 1981. The building is currently up for sale. Anyone looking to  buy an old school?

The second school I visited today was once Washington High School, located not far away from the sawmill kiln I visited a few days ago.
Washington Elementary and High School
The school closed in 1970 due to end of segregation (sound familiar?). The Greenville County Redevelopment Authority recently bought the property.

Across the street is a memorial to Otis James Jones. I don't know who he was, but he must have merited the memorial so here's a shout out:
Otis James Jones memorial - 2
Sorry about the photo being so severely backlit.

I've shared my photos to an album on Flickr and an album Google Plus.


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