A Tradition of Excellence at Mobile County Training School in Africatown, Alabama
A local middle school is a rare surviving example of a twentieth-century project to expand Black children's access to education
Map of Rosenwald Schools showing 4,354 completed school buildings as of July 1, 1928 (1928) by The Julius Rosenwald FundWorld Monuments Fund
World Monuments Fund (WMF) spoke to alumni about their experiences as part of a broader project to highlight Africatown’s unique historic legacy. These conversations explored the history of the school and the vision its former students have for their alma mater’s future.
MCTS alumni Anderson Flen, Darron Patterson, and Joe Womack all contributed to this project. WMF also spoke to Vickii Howell, president and CEO of MOVE Gulf Coast CDC.
At the turn of the century, many counties in the South still refused to provide Black pupils with any kind of schoolhouse, forcing these communities to improvise classrooms in private buildings like churches.
One of the leading public voices on Black education at the time was Booker T. Washington, whose pedagogical philosophy favored practical skills and vocational training with the goal of fostering self-reliance.
Tuskegee Institute - Shoemaking (1902) by Frances Benjamin JohnstonThe Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
“All that I am trying to urge upon you,” he said in one speech, “is to connect your school work, your educational work, with the actual life of the community.”
In 1912, Washington was approached by Julius Rosenwald, the wealthy chair of Sears, Roebuck. Rosenwald laid out an ambitious plan: building a system of schools across the segregated South that would serve the Black children abandoned by their state governments.
A group of men, teachers or agents of the Rosenwald Rural Schools, pose in front of a building. Robert Russa Morton, principal of the Tuskegee Institute, is seated at center, and another man, identified as C.J. Calloway, a general field agent, is standing at left center, behind Morton (1916) by UnknownWorld Monuments Fund
At the time of their creation, the Rosenwald Schools were a critical intervention against systemic discrimination in public education.
Restored interior of Pine Grove Rosenwald School (2012) by Bill FitzpatrickWorld Monuments Fund
The first of Washington and Rosenwald’s schools opened in 1913 in Alabama. By 1928, one third of all Black students in the rural South were attending these schools.
Anderson Flen, one of the founders of the Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation, says that especially in its early years, the education at Mobile County Training School had a practical, agricultural bent, mirroring Washington’s pedagogical vision. The school became part of the Rosenwald network in 1915, when its original building burned down and the town received funds to rebuild.
Mobile County Training School buildings built with Rosenwald Fund money (no date)World Monuments Fund
In designing the Rosenwald Schools, particular attention was paid to light, ventilation, sanitation, and beauty. Careful instructions were given about building orientation as well as the use of paint that would reflect and thereby maximize natural light at a time when most schools would have lacked electricity.
It was also required that schools be useful to the entire community for all twelve months of the year and that they provide ample outdoor space for gardening and play.
Image from the cover of Community School Plans Bulletin No. 3, which details the types of Rosenwald school buildings and outlines their construction standards (1924) by The Julius Rosenwald FundWorld Monuments Fund
“We must make education common–common as the grass, as the sunshine, make it so common that everybody will feel that education is not a vague far off something, dwelling in the midst of the supernatural.”
Booker T. Washington
Joe Womack
President and CEO, CHESS
Principal I.J. Whitley with the 1921 graduating class of Mobile County Training School (1921)World Monuments Fund
But MCTS’s connections to Washington preceded the Rosenwald grant. One of its most influential principals, Isaiah J. Whitley, was an admirer of Washington’s ideas. Even into Flen’s days at MCTS, graduates of Tuskegee Institute’s teacher training program continued to staff MCTS.
Alumni like Joe Womack remember that students were invested with a high degree of autonomy and the ability to self-govern.
Page of the Mobile County Training School Yearbook (1962)World Monuments Fund
“We also had a judicial system where the president of the student body really could make decisions on disciplinary things regarding certain things that happened. As president of the student body, I also had my own office at the school, and I thought every school did that. And when I went to college and I started talking, they said, ‘No, we didn't. No.’”
Anderson Flen
Founder, Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation
Mobile County Training School class will (1962)World Monuments Fund
“Every historically Black high school in Mobile at one time was led by someone who had graduated from Mobile Country Training School. That's the kinda products they turn out.”
Anderson Flen
Founder, Africatown Heritage Preservation Foundation
Mobile County Training School PTA (no date)World Monuments Fund
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ushered in a wave of desegregation across the country, and the students at Mobile County Training School in the 1960s played a part in that. In 1967, students organized the first-ever prom held by a Black school in a downtown Mobile hotel.
Postcard of the Battle House Hotel (1900s) by unknownWorld Monuments Fund
But for Black communities in the South, school desegregation sometimes meant that beloved local schools were shut down and students divided between white educational institutions with neither the ability nor the desire to meet their new students’ needs.
By Paul SchutzerLIFE Photo Collection
Black teachers and staff likewise found themselves facing a situation of uncertainty: some were simply out of a job, while others found work at schools whose white leadership were hostile to their success.
Protesters in Farmville demonstrating against public school closures (1963)World Monuments Fund
It was only after concerted intervention by Africatown residents that MCTS escaped closure and was instead converted from a high school into a middle school.
Many former Rosenwald schoolhouses have fallen into disuse over time.
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Of the more than 5,000 Rosenwald schools that were built, only a handful still serve their original function today. Mobile County Training School is one of them, though the Rosenwald-era building burned down in 1938.
Page of the Mobile County Training School Yearbook (1962)World Monuments Fund
Alumni still feel a deep sense of attachment to and affection for the school—and hope that the values it taught them can continue to be instilled in its students.
For Flen, the 2018 return to the Battle House Hotel in Mobile to mark the 50th anniversary of their school’s groundbreaking prom was an opportunity to show the teachers who attended how much their lessons meant to their students.
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Mobile County Training School courtyard (2021)World Monuments Fund
Mobile County Training School is one of a number of historic sites identified as potential hubs of historic tourism to the area. Community leaders have been working with WMF on plans for conservation and sustainable tourism at the town’s heritage sites.
Sign marking the future site of the Africatown Welcome Center, part of a community-led initiative to manage tourism sustainablyWorld Monuments Fund
Vickii Howell, president and CEO of MOVE Gulf Coast, has spearheaded a design competition to develop tourism infrastructure in the town. Her priority is to make sure that any economic benefit generated from historic tourism redounds to the local community's benefit.
Mobile County Training School courtyard (2021)World Monuments Fund
Alumni hope that visitors to Africatown can come away understanding what made the school so special—and why it needs to be preserved for the future.
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