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Color Beyond the Lines

BLACK EDUCATION THRIVES

Black schools throughout Western North Carolina provided students in each neighborhoods where the black population lived with access to education.  Many of them were in homes, churches and small buildings.

EAST FLAT ROCK COLORED SCHOOL

Built in the 1920s, this school that was partially funded through the support of Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington, so it was considered a Rosenwald school which provided superior education while providing an attention to every detail from lighting to cross ventilation.  It served black students in the East Flat Rock community.  After school consolidation in the 1930s, it served students throughout the county.  It closed in 1952 when the 9th Avenue School opened its doors.

BRICKTON COLORED SCHOOL

Brickton Colored School served African American students in the Fletcher area from the time it was built in 1930 until the Ninth Avenue school was opened in 1951.

EDNEYVILLE COLORED SCHOOL

Black students living in the Edneyville area attended the one-room schoolhouse with a potbellied stove until it closed in the 1930s forcing students to take the long trip to East Flat Rock.

9TH AVENUE SCHOOL

In 1951, this two-story building was opened in Hendersonville, consolidating all black schools in the county to this one building.  Students from Henderson County, Transylvania County and parts of Polk attended 9th Ave School.  Elementary school was on the first floor and high school was upstairs.  The building remained open until integration of schools in 1965.

About

There was a great thirst for education in the black community because they understood to be truly free, they needed to be educated.  Black education was available since the 1870s, mostly in people’s homes, in church basements and in small one-room schoolhouses.   In the 1920s, there were black schools in at least seven communities: Edneyville, Clear Creek, Horseshoe, Etowah, Brickton, Saluda and in East Flat Rock.  In 1951, they were all consolidated to the 9th Avenue School which had a reputation for providing high quality education to students as well as a “family-like” connection to the teachers.  However, black students had access to inferior facilities compared to the white community, old, torn up books, and cramped spaces.  Yet in spite of that, many alumni of 9th Avenue School received superior learning.  When integration was established in Henderson County in 1965, there was an embrace of the better facilities but also a sense of loss that precious black institutions had been taken from them.

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