A. S. Staley High School, also known as Staley High School, was a

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

for African American students active from 1936 until 1968 in

Americus, Georgia Americus is the county seat of Sumter County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,230. It is the principal city of the Americus Micropolitan Statistical Area, a micropolitan area that covers Schley ...

. It was the last segregated high school in the city of Americus.

History

The A. S. Staley High School opened on October 1936, on the site of the Americus Institute (1897–1932), a private black school. It was named in honor of Rev. Alfred Samuel Staley (1861–1927), an educator and the former principal of the McCay Hill School, an earlier African American school in Americus. The school primarily taught manual and domestic education. In 1940, it was one of the sixteen distinguished schools for Black students selected to participate in the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

's '' Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Negroes’ Secondary School Study''.

Closure

The civil rights era in Americus was a time of great turmoil. A. S. Staley High School was the last segregated high school in the city of Americus, when it closed in 1968. Continuing Black high school students were sent to

Americus High School Americus is the county seat of Sumter County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,230. It is the principal city of the Americus Micropolitan Statistical Area, a micropolitan area that covers Schley ...

, which had been founded as a segregated white school, and was racially integrated in 1968. An

urban renewal project Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...

named the "Stanley High Area Urban Renewal" launched in the neighborhood of the former school was months after the school's closure. By 1970, the building was used for a middle school campus, Staley Middle School, which was racially integrated. Daniel T. Grant served as the school principal until 1951, and wrote his autobiography, ''When the Melon is Ripe'' (1955, Exposition Press Inc.) about his experiences. Grant had instituted the school's band program. South Carolina's Museum of Education featured the school in an exhibition in 2011.

History

Closure

See also

References

Further reading