Fred Douglass School

The name is why a second plaque exists. Letitia Horace, a parent-teacher organization member at Jacksonville ISD's Fred Douglass Elementary, noticed that the campus did not explain who the school was named for and proposed one near the entrance. She worked with alumni and the Fred Douglass Community Development Corporation. The plaque tells of Frederick Douglass, born into slavery, who taught himself to read when it was illegal, and of the original school, which served Black students from elementary through high school until 1970. Class of 1969 alumni gave the school about 100 books at the unveiling.

What the plaque says

Fred Douglass School Named after prominent African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, the Fred Douglass School was a 20th century African American educational institution in Jacksonville. Because of Jim Crow, the system of laws that legalized segregation, African Americans had to attend separate schools. In the 1900s, the "Little Red School House" was one of the first African American schools in Jacksonville. When the school burned down in 1921, J.H. Howard, the principal, directed the construction of the Fred Douglass School. First built in 1922 on Elberta Street, the original Fred Douglass School was funded partially by the Rosenwald Foundation, which gave money to construct African American schools in rural areas in the South. The building consisted of six classrooms, a principal's office, book room and auditorium. M.B. Davis served as the first principal from 1924-1956 with H.V. Jones serving as principal from 1956-1970. In 1930, M.C. Wade negotiated with the all-white Jacksonville school board to allocate funds for a larger Fred Douglass School in Lincoln Park. To accommodate the growing student population, the school moved from its Elberta Street location to the Lincoln Park Addition, which contained more classrooms and a larger auditorium. The school expanded again with the construction of another building located on Gaston Street named Fred Douglass High School. Students attended the school until 1970 when African American students were fully integrated into Jacksonville schools. After integration, the school sat empty until it burned down in 1979. The Fred Douglass School not only represented the systems of inequality used in the Jim Crow South, but also how Jacksonville's African American community built educational opportunities for their children. (2018)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 24 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 26 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.

More markers nearby

• Site of First Free Public School — 0.8 mi
• Jacksonville Independent School District — 0.8 mi
• Jacksonville College — 1.0 mi
• Church Founded by Chaplain Nicholas A. Davis, C.S.A. — 1.2 mi