Lessons from the Schoolhouse
Benjamin Galland, h2o creative group
Harrington School pre-restoration
An upright piano laid in ruins before plans to save the Harrington School were started.
“Three things struck me in quick succession when I was boosted up and through the stairless back door of the old schoolhouse on South Harrington Road,” recalled Patty Deveau, president of the Friends of Harrington School. “First, this looked like a Rosenwald school. Second, it was still standing because education meant freedom in a Gullah Geechee community. And third, I did not fall through the floor.” The last was most important to Deveau because if the floor was this solid, it could mean that the schoolhouse was not “beyond repair” as generally assumed and the St. Simons Land Trust (SSLT) and Glynn County might allow the St. Simons African American Heritage Coalition (SSAAHC) to get a second opinion so that the last African American schoolhouse on St. Simons Island could be saved and restored.
Fortunately, that permission was granted and the SSLT and the County, who jointly owned the schoolhouse, agreed to put the demolition permit on hold. The Historic Preservation Task Force of the Coastal Regional Commission reported that although there was termite and storm damage to the building, the foundation beams were solid and the schoolhouse had been so well built that “it could float.” The SSAAHC received a 99-year lease from the SSLT to restore, maintain and operate the historic schoolhouse. The Friends of Harrington, Inc. was formed to assist the SSAAHC with restoring the historic Harrington school.
It turns out that an historic structure restoration isn’t done in a day. Or even a year or two. But it does happen with excellent professional advice, mostly good weather, generous donors, and a persistent band of optimist volunteers. Those folks will be celebrated at the annual Friends of Harrington lunch meeting on Saturday, February 4 at 11:00 a.m. at Bennie’s Red Barn. (The public is invited. For more details and to R.S.V.P, visit ssiheritagecoalition.org.)
Between 1917 and 1932 over 5,000 schools were built for African American children across the South through a collaboration between Sears CEO Julius Rosenwald in Chicago and Tuskegee University President Booker T. Washington. “The Rosenwald Fund drew up the school plans and offered grants to local communities to build a school if the local African American community and the local public officials would raise about 2/3 of the necessary funds, and provide the local materials and skilled labor to build the school. Deveau recognized the schoolhouse design immediately because as a coastal historian and historic preservationist she was aware that both the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office had initiatives to locate and document these schools. “While no record had been found that Harrington was funded by the Rosenwald Fund,” Deveau pointed out, “ the school dimensions right down to the measurements for the blackboards for younger children and older students mirror the exact specifications for the Rosenwald Community School Plan A.“ Shortly after taking that first step inside the old schoolhouse, Deveau went to the special collections section at the Brunswick library and found a 1920 U.S. Bureau of Education Report on Glynn County schools that made a reference to the need for two Rosenwald schools on St. Simons Island, or, the report read, “if you cannot build a Rosenwald, build a similar plan.” That school, she is convinced, is Harrington.
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Benjamin Galland, h2o creative group
Harrington School exterior
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Benjamin Galland, h2o creative group
Harrington School interior
The Harrington Graded School was built in the 1920s by African American tradesmen for the education of their children and grandchildren. Each nail in this simple one room structure held the future for those descended from slaves who worked the island’s cotton and rice plantations. “Education meant freedom in our community,” said Emory Rooks, SSAAHC treasurer, former Harrington student and descendant of the Cannon Point slave/driver Salih Bilali. Rooks reminded the volunteers that anything they needed to do to this historic structure had to honor that legacy and be good for another 99 years or so. The Friends of Harrington and SSAAHC pulled together a statewide Historic Preservation Technical Advisory Committee to review and approve each step and a local board of former students, historians, and community elders to follow the work. The SSAAHC selected Hansen Architects and Tidewater Preservation, both firms with excellent experience and a vast amount of patience. Work progressed only as funds were raised.
The details of the restoration: the plans, progress, historical programs, and fundraising events, can be found on the coalition’s website. “We wanted to keep our members and the public informed throughout the restoration,” stated Natalie Moore, SSAAHC president. Their first event, “Architectural Archeology Day,” provided an inside look at the schoolhouse and helped supporters see for themselves what work needed to be done. Best of all, Deveau remembers all the former students who came to the schoolhouse to tell the contractors and guests what details they remembered about the school building. “We have a video of Mrs. Isadora Hunter who attended the school in 1928 giving preservation contractor Greg Jacobs a tour of her schoolhouse. It was a cold rainy day but Mrs. Hunter, age 90, came out in her hat, gloves, matching purse and perfectly tailored wool skirt,” Deveau reminisced. In 2004, Mrs. Hunter donated her portion of her inherited property so that the schoolhouse along with surrounding 12 acres could be preserved. The Harrington Community Park with trails and ponds opened in December 2016.
Nearly $300,000 was raised over seven years to restore the schoolhouse. Initial grassroots support stabilized the structure and put on a new roof. Larger donations boosted the smaller grassroots gifts to replace the asbestos siding, repair walls and foundations, repair windows and doors, and paint the exterior. The recent challenge grant from the Watson Brown Foundation encouraged donors to double their gift impact before the end of 2016. Currently the final interior tasks are being completed and supporters anticipate the schoolhouse to open within the month.
Many donors made gifts in honor of persons who taught them the most. A young woman from Cajun Louisiana recognized “Miss Rose” who gave her encouragement to become a teacher at a time and place when girls were supposed to quit school, marry young, and have lots of babies. One man honored Charlie Hunter and Tom Ramsey who always took him and his brothers coon hunting and digging for oysters. One son honored his parents who were teachers at South End School. Another student thanked her Harrington teachers Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. Another former Harrington student, now a retired colonel, remembered his grandfather a local pastor. A lady who chose St. Simons Island as her second home was honored after her death by her friends and colleagues who recalled the consortium she founded for over 100 storeowners across the nation devoted to children. All donors are listed on the Honor Roll and their Tributes to Teachers can be found on the coalition’s website.
While restoring the historic structure the SSAAHC and Friends of Harrington held events that also fulfilled the SSAAHC mission “to educate, preserve and revitalize African American heritage.” Eight former students told an audience at Coastal Georgia Historical Society about the lessons they were taught and lessons they learned in their one room segregated schoolhouse and in the boarding schools they attended after Glynn County consolidated public schools and closed Harrington. An audience of “snowbirds” at Jekyll Island Museum eagerly asked questions about what it was like to live during segregation. Service Learning students at the College of Coastal Georgia prepared biographies of the persons whose names appear on the street signs in the island’s African American neighborhoods. For three years Mercer University students created video essays from oral histories they held with community elders. SSAAHC Executive Director Amy Lotson Roberts has been collecting photos and funeral programs from community families as well as conducting tours of the island’s African American historic sites. “Most coastal historical sites focus on slavery. We want to complete the history of our area by filling in the 150 years from emancipation through the civil rights era,” summarized Roberts who received the 2012 Georgia Governor’s Award in the Humanities for her work saving and sharing local African American history.
When opened, The Historic Harrington School Cultural Center will once more be a place for education and community gatherings. The building will be used for educational interpretation about the site and its Gullah Geechee history. The building will be “divided” into two sections. One section will have a gift shop with items for sale, a display of various artifacts, and bookshelves filled with a library of local history resources. The second section will be a classroom for classes about history, traditional cooking, quilting, weaving, and various musical instruments. Also, the school will be used for meetings, to host gatherings, .reunions and community events. Guidelines will be developed for its use and will be available from SSAAHC on their website: ssiheritagecoalition.org. The schoolhouse will once again be providing lessons to a whole new generation.
The SSAAHC is seeking sponsors, partners and volunteers to assist them in 2017. Volunteers can help save and share local African American history in many ways: tours, special programs, collecting and organizing archival material and oral histories, and expanding membership. There will be sign-up sheets and more details at the February 4 meeting and on the website. SSAAHC president Moore said that “If you like music and enjoyed last February’s tribute to Bessie Jones, Frankie Quimby and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, help us plan three upcoming events: “Motown Revue” in April; a “Musical Extravaganza” in early June that will recall the big bands and headliner performers who visited local juke joints traveling between gigs in NYC and Miami, or attend the June 3 Georgia Sea Island Festival which has been highlighting traditional music, crafts and food for more than 30 years. For more info, call 912.634.0330 or email friends@ssiheritagecoalition.org.
Through the St. Simons Island African American Heritage Coalition, Amy Roberts conducts tours on St. Simons Island of secular and non-secular sites significant in African American heritage on the island. The old cemeteries and memorial statues are among some of her stops. A guided tour of the island with her vast knowledge is highly educational. A few significant memorial sites in the Golden Isles are worth noting here, but for a comprehensive view of African American life on the island, take the tour.
