Sunday Favorites: History African American Education in Manatee County

Those African-American students who didn’t work on a farm during the rest of the year paid 25 cents a week to receive an education. Classes didn’t take place at a school, instead lessons were delivered at churches and storefronts–anywhere that was willing to provide space for children to learn. Instructors ranged from ministers to black community leaders and on occasion, a teacher would be brought in from across the state, according to Louise Rogers Johnson in her 1987 interview with the Manatee Historical Society regarding African American education in Manatee County.

Johnson remembers community members inviting their relatives who had attended college to teach the children. Other times prominent black educators would serve as one-time guest instructors for a day’s lesson.

Another school existed in the late 1920s called Lyles-Bryant School, which was located in Bradenton (then called Braidentown). Historian Norma Dunwoody discovered the school’s history while working at the Heritage House Museum, located on the State College of Florida campus. It took her two years to prove its existence through telephone directories, microfilm cataloges and official meeting minutes.

In 1930, Johnson’s father Garfield DeVoe Rogers purchased the building that once served as the Manatee County Courthouse. He moved it to Second Street and 10th Avenue West in Bradenton and began the first official school for African Americans which he named "Lincoln Academy Grammar School.“

Like the building itself, everything inside Lincoln Academy was second-hand. Books, sporting equipment and supplies were donated by white schools in the area. Children and parents would have to hold fundraisers in order to buy new equipment.

Once a child turned 14, they had left home and attend one of a handful of private, African-American colleges. These colleges had high-school departments so the students lived there through high school and college – an average of six years. Colleges required tuition, which is why many black students were not allotted the opportunity to attend high school.

In 1931, Lincoln Academy dropped the "Grammar School“ from its name and expanded to include grades 9, 10, 11 and 12. A few years later, another African-American high school opened on the north side of the river called Memorial High School. Eventually these two schools were merged, renamed Lincoln Memorial High School, and relocated on the site of present day Lincoln Middle School in Palmetto.

Both Memorial and Lincoln high schools had their own sports teams coached by volunteer teachers and community members. Upon their consolidation in 1949, the student body and faculty representatives selected the Trojan as the school mascot. The prowess of the Lincoln Trojan football team became renowned throughout Florida.

U.S. 41 separated the playing field from school grounds so a tunnel was dug beneath the highway to ensure safe passage for the players. Traveling "through the tunnel“ before a game became a beloved ritual for the players and inspired the award-winning documentary "Through the Tunnel" that was directed by Judge Durand Adams, Charles E. Williams and Charles Clapsaddle. The historic tunnel still joins Lincoln Park and Lincoln Middle School.

The 1940s were a controversial era for black teachers. Educators all over the nation began to sue school boards for equalization of salaries as black teachers’ wages were far less than those of whites. When Frances H. Stephens sued the Manatee County School Board, G.D. Rogers came to her rescue – he not only offered to hire any teacher terminated for supporting the suit, but also used his connections to get Thurgood Marshall, then chief counsel for the NAACP, involved in the dispute.

A federal court ruled in favor of Stevens, in March of 1945. The school teacher who had funded her own lawsuit, not only won but completely reformed the ratings system that had been in use for years. Under the new system a teacher’s ability, educational attainments, cultural background, and effectiveness in teaching would be considered for salary compensation and be determined by a rating committee made up of the superintendent and other board members.

Despite the reform for educators, desegregation didn’t occur until 1970 and the process was not a smooth one. In March of that year, the county was forced to comply with federal mandates. The district shut down all African-American schools with plans to bus black students and teachers to different high schools around the county.

On April 6, Gov. Claude Kirk, the acting superintendent, assumed control of the school administration building in an effort to halt the busing. A protest ensued and Kirk returned to Tallahassee leaving his aids in charge of the fiasco. When federal marshals arrived to arrest Kirk, he wasn’t there, but the local sheriff, Richard Weitzenfold, tried to interfere. He and five other deputies were arrested and buses ordered to resume their effort.

African-American education reform has been a long and bumpy process and one with many mixed emotions. While desegregation did occur, not one black school was left intact. The communal bases these schools represented were destroyed for the greater good. We should all appreciate the sacrifice that went along with desegregation and remember the people who made it happen.