Annie Colbert - Rosenwald School

Most Rosenwald schools were wood-framed. Dayton's is brick, which Bluebonnet News suggests may have helped it last. Of the 5,357 such schools built across the South between 1917 and 1932 with money from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, only about 10 to 12 percent survive. Dayton's was nearly demolished; former Dayton ISD superintendent Greg Hayman is credited with saving it, and restoration was complete by 2009. The building stands behind Colbert Elementary at 231 South Colbert Street and houses the histories of the school and of the Rosenwald program.

What the plaque says

Annie Colbert - Rosenwald School BY 1883, LIBERTY COUNTY MAINTAINED 53 SCHOOLS, INCLUDING 19 AFRICAN AMERICAN SCHOOLS. THE AVERAGE SCHOOL TERM WAS THREE MONTHS FOR AGES 8-14 BUT THE ONLY SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN IN DAYTON WAS LOCATED NEAR THE SETTLEMENTS OF STILSON AND FOUTS. IN THE LATE 1890s, THE SCHOOL DISTRICT HIRED THEIR FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN TEACHER, ANNIE (FAIRCHILD) COLBERT (1866-1961). BORN IN HOUSTON, SHE ATTENDED HOUSTON SCHOOLS AND THEN TILLOTSON INSTITUTE IN AUSTIN. SHE TAUGHT AT THE GREGORY SCHOOL UNTIL SHE MARRIED RAILROAD PORTER TONY COLBERT. FORBIDDEN TO TEACH SCHOOL IN HOUSTON AS A MARRIED WOMAN, SHE AND HER HUSBAND MOVED TO DAYTON WHERE ANNIE ACCEPTED A POSITION AT A ONE-ROOM SHACK. UPON ARRIVAL, SHE GATHERED HER STUDENTS AND, TOGETHER, THEY BUILT AN IMPROVED ONE-ROOM FRAME SCHOOLHOUSE NEAR LUKE AND PRATER STREETS. MRS. COLBERT CONTINUED TO TEACH THE AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS OF DAYTON UNTIL 1918, INSTILLING THE VALUE OF EDUCATION IN HER STUDENTS AND WITHIN THE COMMUNITY. IN 1918, THE AFRICAN AMERICAN SCHOOL RELOCATED TO A SITE NEAR THE ST. PAUL AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH UNTIL 1927, WHEN THE SCHOOL DISTRICT BUILT THE DAYTON COLORED SCHOOL. SADLY, IT BURNED IN 1929. THAT SAME YEAR, THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AND COMMUNITY PARTNERED WITH THE ROSENWALD SCHOOL BUILDING PROGRAM TO CONSTRUCT A SCHOOL FOR THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY. THE NEW FOUR-ROOM ROSENWALD SCHOOL WAS DEDICATED IN 1934 AND NAMED IN HONOR OF ANNIE COLBERT, A PIONEER IN AFRICAN AMERICAN EDUCATION IN SOUTHEAST TEXAS. (2019

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center — 8.0 mi
  A state archives and museum north of Liberty with an exhibit on Southeast Texas history and a campus of historic buildings, including an 1848 house and an 1898 church.
• San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 24 mi
  The 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.

More markers nearby

• The Runaway Scrape — 0.3 mi
• First Methodist Church of Dayton — 0.6 mi
• The Trinity River — 3.9 mi
• To Generals Lallemand, Antoine Riguad, the veterans of the Napoleonic Wars — 3.9 mi