Sidney D. Miller Middle School
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The Sidney D. Miller Middle School, also known as the Sidney D. Miller Junior High and High School, is a school building located at 2322 DuBois Street in
Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
,
Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
. It served as a high school from 1933 to 1957, and was significant as the ''de facto'' high school serving
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
students in Detroit. It was designated a state of Michigan Historic Site in 1986 and was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 2011.


History

Detroit experienced a phenomenal increase in population of almost 700,000 people during the 1910s. To accommodate the influx of residents and their children, numerous schools were built during the decade. Ground was broken for what was then called the "Dubois School" in 1918; the school was intended to serve as a junior high. The school was designed by the architectural firm of
Malcomson and Higginbotham Malcomson and Higginbotham was an architectural firm started in the nineteenth century and based in Detroit, Michigan. A successor firm, Malcomson-Greimel and Associates, still exists in Rochester, Michigan as of 2010. History Architects William G. ...
, the architects of nearly all Detroit Public Schools in the period 1894 to 1923, and constructed at a cost on $245,616. In 1919, the still unfinished building was renamed the "Sidney D. Miller Intermediate School". Sidney D. Miller (1830–1904) was a former president of the Detroit Board of Education, as well as of the Detroit Health Commission and Police Commission. However, construction plans were changed several times, and the school was not opened to students until 1921. The building itself was finally completed in 1922. During the 1920s, the city's population continued to grow, stretching the capacity of the school system. An addition to Miller, including a girl's gymnasium, was completed in 1931. Although the area around the school was predominantly white when the building opened, the percentage of African Americans in the Black Bottom neighborhood increased so that soon it was predominantly black. Parents of white students at nearby Eastern High School complained about the rising Black student population, and in response the Detroit School Board converted Miller to a senior high school in 1933. A liberal school transfer policy allowed white students zoned to Miller to attend Eastern, which left Miller as the ''de facto'', if not ''de jure'', African-American High school. The school is significant in part because of its association with the education of African American students, beginning in 1933. From 1933 to 1957, it served as the main, but unofficial, secondary school for black students. Due in part to concerns from the black community, the School Board installed a number of Black teachers and administrators at Miller. However, in 1955, steps were taken to end the ''de facto'' segregation of the Detroit School system, and in 1957 the building was converted back into a middle school. It remained a middle school for 50 years and was closed in 2007. In the early 2010s the building was repurposed and reopened as University Prep Science and Math Elementary School, which it continues to operate as to today.


Athletics

Miller High School met Detroit St. Joseph High School in 1947 at Detroit's
Olympia Stadium Detroit Olympia, also known as Olympia Stadium, was a multi-purpose arena in Detroit. Nicknamed "The Old Red Barn", it was best known as the home of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League (NHL) from its opening in 1927 to 1979. Hist ...
in what became the first City Basketball Championship game in Detroit
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and Catholic High School League history. Miller won that game 47 to 34 before a Michigan high school record attendance of 11,563.


Description

The Miller School is a 2-1/2 story
Jacobethan The Jacobethan ( ) architectural style, also known as Jacobean Revival, is the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the Engli ...
building with a flat roof, built of red brick with
limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
beltcourses. The front (west) and rear façades are asymmetrical, with three-story projecting bays. The entrance is through a
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...
arch flanked by piers; the words "SYDNEY D. MILLER JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL AD 1919" are carved above the entrance. The original 1921 building occupies an L-shaped footprint. Later additions in 1931 and 1951 extended the building further east and enclosed a small courtyard within the building, making the perimeter nearly rectangular.


References


Further reading

* Also see A Place Called Miller by Edward Simpkins a 260 page book on the 40th annual Miller picnic.


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Sidney D., Middle School National Register of Historic Places in Detroit School buildings completed in 1922 Defunct schools in Michigan African-American history in Detroit Unused buildings in Detroit Jacobean architecture in the United States 1922 establishments in Michigan Detroit Public Schools Community District 2007 disestablishments in Michigan