Site of Rincon/Douglass School

Rincon School was one piece of the Freedmen's Bureau's most successful work in Texas. The bureau's officers believed good schools and free labor were the keys to protecting freed people. At the end of 1865 sixteen bureau schools served just over 1,000 Black pupils; by July 1870, the bureau's last month, 150 schools enrolled 9,086. The work met fierce resistance from some White Texans, who burned schoolhouses and harassed teachers, though the last report of the superintendent of Texas schools found such attacks had almost entirely ceased.

What the plaque says

Site of Rincon/Douglass School In the aftermath of the Civil War, the resolution of issues associated with education of newly freed slaves influenced the nature of Southern education well into the 20th century. The federal government established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands to coordinate the transition from slavery to freedom. Among the more visible of the Bureau's programs was the organization and building of schools. The first free public school for Blacks in San Antonio was built on this site in the late 1860s. Operated by the local office of the Freedmen's Bureau, the school was a two-story stone structure. Called Rincon School because of its location on Rincon (now St. Mary's) Street, the school provided instruction to students of all ages. It was the only Bureau school in Texas to receive support from a local government. The City of San Antonio assumed operation of the school in 1871, adding it to what eventually became the San Antonio Independent School District. The name was changed to Riverside School in 1890, and to Frederick Douglass School in 1904. Ten years later the school was relocated to a two-story brick building at what is now 318 Martin Luther King Drive. An important part of the city's history, Rincon/Douglass School has been integral to the heritage of a large portion of San Antonio's population. The early example established by the Rincon School and similar schools played a fundamental role in defining the nature of the segregated school system in Texas and at the same time inspired support for universal public education in the South. (1989, 2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Fernando Cathedral — 0.4 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.
• Spanish Governor's Palace — 0.4 mi
  The last visible piece of the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar: a presidio captain's house with a 1749 keystone, a century as shops and saloons, and a romantic 1930 restoration.
• The Alamo — 0.5 mi
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
• Casa Navarro State Historic Site — 0.6 mi
  The adobe and caliche-block home of José Antonio Navarro, a native-born signer of the 1836 declaration, and the last remnant of the Tejano neighborhood called Laredito.

More markers nearby

• Travis Park United Methodist Church — 0.2 mi
• Old Military Headquarters — 0.2 mi
• Site of de la Garza House, Gardens and Mint — 0.3 mi
• Central Christian Church — 0.3 mi