Site of Central School

H. B. Pemberton Sr. was born in Marshall in January 1866 to parents who had been enslaved. After his father died in 1883 he supported his mother and two younger siblings while still in school, and in 1888 he became the first graduate of Wiley College's college-level program, magna cum laude. In 1894 he persuaded the city superintendent to build a school for Black children, and the Handbook of Texas says he mortgaged his own property to fund it. He died in 1944 and is buried in Powder Mill Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Site of Central School Early schools for Marshall's African Americans consisted of loosely organized classes held in homes, churches, and lodge halls. In 1894 Professor H. B. Pemberton, Sr., convinced city officials of the need for a school building and a fixed curriculum for African Americans. Pemberton arranged a loan, which the African American community repaid, to establish Marshall's first public school, "Central School," at this site in 1894. Central expanded in 1906 to include a high school. Central High School moved in 1925 and the school here was renamed "Hillside." Hillside School closed in 1941. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Harrison County Historical Museum — 0.3 mi
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 0.5 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 0.8 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 14 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.

More markers nearby

• Confederate Capitol of Missouri — 0.2 mi
• C.G. Lancaster — 0.3 mi
• Harrison County — 0.4 mi
• Marshall — 0.4 mi