The Last Segregated School?

When I was in San Marcos for a lecture at Texas State University my host Don Inbody showed me an elementary school that was built in 1949 for Hispanic children.  That was still a half decade before Brown v. Board of Education.  That led me to wonder: what's the last school built as a de jure segregated school?  I'd imagine there were ones built after Brown that are de facto segregated, but I'd like to hear guesses as to what was the last de jure segregated school built in the United States?

Comments

[PaulB]

Prof.Brophy, I don't have an answer for your question but would point out that there were a fair number of new schools built in the south in the early 1950s in response to the Supreme Court cases in the post-war era prior to Brown that recognized that the facilities provided to African American students were clearly unequal.

[Jamie S]

Is it possible that the school was built to educate Mexican children as part of the bracero program?

[Mark Regan]

Didn't the "new" Robert R. Moton HS, a "separate but equal" improved school responding to the 1951 walkout and maybe to the pending Davis case, open in Farmville, VA in 1953?

[Al Brophy]

Thanks for all these comments, PaulB, Jamie S, and Mark Regan. I don't know the answer to Jamie S' question.

Moton HS sounds like a strong contender for last school segregation built during de jure segregation. I saw it when I was up in Farmville a couple years back. (It's a museum or some such now, I think.) Unfortunately didn't take a picture of it, which I thought was a mistake at the time, but maybe I'll have the chance to get up to Prince Edward County this summer. Want to do some work at Hampden-Sydney College archives and that would be the perfect time to get a picture of the Moton School -- and also the High Bridge up there.

[Charleston Prof]

On Meeting Street in Charleston, South Carolina, there's an elementary school that still bears a sign reading "Courtenay School 1955." I've been told that it was one of a number of schools the State of Carolina built to try to sustain the "separate but equal" argument. The school is across the street from my office at the Charleston School of Law. The school has been rebuilt and now bears a different name, but it always has struck me as strange that they've chosen to retain the old sign.

[Al Brophy]

Well, that one sounds like it's the winner.... But 1955?

I see a picture of the Courtney School on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/hdescopeland/2233233830/

[Charleston Prof]

Here's a website that discusses South Carolina's "equalization schools":

http://www.scequalizationschools.org/

I believe 1955 is when the school was completed and occupied; construction would have begun prior to 1955.

[SC Prof]

This report may provide some helpful information regarding the Courtney School and others in and around Charleston. http://nationalregister.sc.gov/SurveyReports/EqualizationSchoolsCharleston.pdf

[SC Prof]

More information regarding the Courtney School and other schools in and around Charleston can be found here:
http://nationalregister.sc.gov/SurveyReports/EqualizationSchoolsCharleston.pdf