Black Education in Orange County

One teacher at the school the marker follows stayed over fifty years. Emma Henderson Wallace, born in Waxahachie in 1876, taught in Tyler, Ellis and Jefferson counties before coming to Orange in 1901 as one of four teachers at the Orange Colored School. She became principal of Moton High School in 1933. In 1946 its parents' group asked that it carry her name; it then had 26 teachers and 820 students. Prairie View College honored her 51 years in 1947. She retired in 1952 and died in Dallas in 1968; a state marker stands at her Orange grave.

What the plaque says

Black Education in Orange County Schools for Orange County's black children were held in churches and private homes as early as the 1870s. In 1887 a black school was opened in the Duncan Woods community, and another was soon established in Orange. Known as Orange Colored School, it was renamed in 1930 in honor of educator Robert Russa Moton and again in 1946 for longtime principal Emma H. Wallace. Another elementary school was located near Rebeck Crossing in the northern part of the city, and by 1960 Franklin Elementary and North Junior High were in operation. (1988)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stark Museum of Art — 0.5 mi
  A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.
• Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center — 1.0 mi
  More than 250 acres on Adams Bayou, begun by H. J. Lutcher Stark in 1937, with garden rooms, a cypress-tupelo swamp, a heronry blind and free pontoon tours in season.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 20 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 21 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.

More markers nearby

• Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church — steps away
• Saint Paul Christian Methodist Episcopal Church — steps away
• Salem United Methodist Church — steps away
• St. Therese Catholic Church — 0.3 mi