Central Delta Academy (CDA) was a
private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* "In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation''
* Private (band), a Denmark-based band
* "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorded ...
elementary and middle school,, and later just elementary school, in
Inverness, Mississippi,
[Contacts]
." Central Delta Academy. Retrieved on August 17, 2010
Tripod version
"Driving Directions to Central Delta Academy From the north: Central Delta is located approximately 8 miles south of Indianola on Highway 49. Take the first Inverness sign and follow old Highway 49 until you see the large white two-story building on your left, which will be CDA. From the south: Central Delta is located approximately 15 miles north of Belzoni, MS, on Highway 49. Take the first Inverness sign and follow old Highway 49 until you see the large white two-story building on your left, which will be CDA." that operated from 1969 to 2010. It was founded as a
segregation academy
Segregation academies are private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend Racial segregation in the United States, desegregated public schools. They ...
by white parents fleeing newly integrated public schools. The school closed on May 21, 2010; its building was auctioned off several weeks later.
History
The Central Delta Academy's athletic mascot was "The Tigers." As of 1990, the Central Delta Academy and Inverness High School women's basketball teams had never faced off against each other. They were in different systems.
By the early 21st century, CDA and
Inverness High School sponsored joint Homecoming weekends and events.
In 1987
the school's
parent teacher organization published ''The Sharecropper,'' a collection of area recipes.
Campus
The building was constructed in 1922 as Inverness School, the town's public "white school," which housed white students in grades 1-12 until the end of the era of racial segregation.
Central Delta Academy was permitted to purchase the building and land from the public school system at the outset of mandatory desegregation, as nearly all of the parents of white students who attended the school when segregation was terminated refused to permit their children to attend school with black students, so they promptly established the all-white CDA for their children to attend. Since most of the white students who had formerly attended the school were no longer in the public schools which, in turn, diminished the public schools' infrastructure requirements, the facility was deemed excess to the public school system and title was transferred to CDA upon payment of a nominal price. This served to perpetuate racial segregation, albeit not thereafter government-sponsored segregation. The school operated until 2010, when the property was sold and the building demolished.
Abandoned Mississippi: Central Delta Academy, Inverness
/ref>
The school was situated on U.S. Highway 49, about south of Indianola and north of Belzoni.
See also
* Education segregation in Mississippi Delta
References
External links
Central Delta Academy
(Archive)
Central Delta Academy 2002 website
{{Sunflower County, Mississippi Schools
Private middle schools in Mississippi
Private elementary schools in Mississippi
Defunct schools in Mississippi
Schools in Sunflower County, Mississippi
Educational institutions disestablished in 2010
Segregation academies in Mississippi
2010 disestablishments in Mississippi