Andrew Jackson Elementary School

Andrew Jackson Elementary School is as an “equalization school” built in the 1950s in an effort to stave off full integration. The design and construction values were an improvement over the existing schools for Black students, and the school distinguished itself academically as the first African American elementary school in the county to be accredited. It continued to serve a segregated student body until 1970 when Weldon’s school integration plan was fully implemented.

Through the mid-twentieth century, local schools in Halifax County were segregated by race as was the custom. In 1950 a building program was proposed for schools throughout the county with significant funding for Black schools. This may have been in response to several court cases within North Carolina seeking equal facilities for African Americans.  The push for improvement and construction of African American schools accelerated after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.  The county passed a local bond referendum to support construction including the Andrew Jackson Elementary School. Opened in 1959, the school was named for Andrew Joshua Jackson (1830-1924), an African American born enslaved in Virginia who was taken to Halifax County, North Carolina as a young boy.  He became ordained clergy, and also worked and donated funding to support education.  The school was designed by Charles Craig Davis, Jr. (1919-2015). A native of Wilmington, he studied at North Carolina State University and the University of Illinois and briefly worked for F. Carter Williams in Raleigh before moving to Roanoke Rapids and establishing his own practice. Davis was locally prolific and specialized in schools. Between 1958 and 1978 he designed more than 30 school projects in Halifax County.

In the wake of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 there was federal capacity to survey schools for compliance with anti-discrimination policies and for the Attorney General to institute actions against schools that were non-compliant.  In response the locality developed an integration plan and by 1970 all students in grades three through eight in the Town of Halifax attended Andrew Jackson Elementary School. Though the schools were legally integrated, Andrew Jackson remained a predominantly African American school as many white parents opted to send their children to private “segregation academies.” The school continued as an elementary school until its closure in 2001.

A link to the nomination can be found here.