Know Thyself Unforgetting Black Heritage
Know T
Unforgetting B
Thyself
Black Heritage
New Roc
helle, NY
Lincoln Sch
torn down after
hool History
r desegregation
Brown v
v. Board
Taylor v The fight m
v. Board moves North
The Na
arrative
1889: Eugene Pugsley, Ralph Thomas, and Clarence Hall are the first students to shift from the Negro School to Trinity School
1842: St Catherine’s A.M.E. establishes seperate, segreagates school for “colored children”
17??: Huguenot School founded 1774: New Rochelle was the only remaining town in Westchester to maintain a seperate segregated school (until 1889)
1885: All schools to be open to both white and Colored students
190 Winyah school, a by Black
1898: Wimyah Avenue elementary school (later renamed Lincoln Elementary) is built on land purchased from Col. Richard Lathers. Who was a pro-slavery Democrat from Georgetown, South Carolina.
05: Avenue attended children
1949: Lincoln School parents charge the Board of Education with segregating the school, by allowing white children to transfer to other New Rochelle neighborhood schools. 1916: Percy Richardson is first Black student to graduate from New Rochelle High School 1961: U.S. Court of Appeals (SDNY) rules in favor of Lincoln School parents, demanding the Board come up with a plan to desgreagte within two years
1939: Ethel C. Harris is the first Black teacher in New Rochelle and the Westchester County public school system (at Lincoln School which is 90% Black) 1957: Dodson Report published
1964: Lincoln School is demolished and the student body is divided and bussed in different directions to several other schools.
Protest Route
1961 - Student Dispersal
2021- Student Dispersal
Educational Void
2016 Student Perspective Taylor-Era Studio Advocate
“I remember one young man,”[Kenneth] Clark recounted. “I’ve never forgotten him, in Arkansas, when I asked [which dool he liked], he pointed to the white doll. And i asked him which one don’t you like, and he pointed to the brown-skinned doll. He was brown-skinned. And he said, ‘That’s a nigger, I’m a nigger,’ and he lauged. I don’t know what the laughter meant. “Your school kind of determines what you’re going to be.” “The children were housed in increasingly delapidated facilities” “Albert Leonard was considered the better school than Isaac, so that’s why I was sent to Albert Leonard.” “Acquiescence has heightened concern as to the `status’ of one school as against another with the result that there is almost a `phobia’ about the district lines in several of the schools surrounding Washington, Lincoln and Columbus.”
“If you put a child in an inferior school then they most likely will do poorly.” “when a school was known as a ‘Negro school’ it was regarded by the community and the pupils as inferior.” “I have seen both sides. People at my middle school tend to look down upon those who attend schoools on the ‘South End’.”
“A child cannot improve if you don’t give them the chance to by providing them with an environment which is safe and encouraging.” “To seperate children in grade and high schools from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be done.” “People say that, and percieve that it’s [Albert Leonard] “The services at the school deteriorated” the better one, but that proves it if you can find that there’s money...” “The statistics showed that the negro “If you want the opportunity to attend a school on the children were not achieving up to their “North End” but are not zoned for that particular school, capacity and were indeed performing below the only way to get that chance is to win a lottery which the norm.” very few do. “The panel was puzzled that in a city as dynamic as New Rochelle, in a decade, with insignificant exceptions, few children from the outside have ever been sent into the three schools located in the low socio-economic status neighborhoods.” “An outsider will not be aware of the faulty system unless you attend one of the schools.”
“In 1955 a survey of the physical facilities of the New Rochelle schools, conducted by the engineering firm of Englehardt, Englehardt and Leggett, revealed that the Lincoln building was obsolete and thus would have to be retired. This conclusion reinforced the findings of a 1948 engineering survey conducted by Leland Hubbell Lyon. The report recommended that both the Lincoln and Washington schools be closed, and a combined school be built on the present Lincoln site.” “A 2015 building conditions survey of the districts ten schools, required by the state every five years, found nine buildings were unsatisfactory and one poor.” “I don’t think I’ve ever even “Clark testified that school segregation was distoring the seen Davis [Elementary] minds of black youngsters to the point of making them selfbefore!” hating.”
Infrastructu
considerable displacem
ural History
ment and names erasure
HISTORICAL REPTITION
CONSIDERABLE DISPLACEMENT
1858
1867
1914
1960
1881
1970
NAMES ERASURE
What’s
s next?
How can we return Lincoln an rightful place as a central hub, history of New Rochelle an
nd the Memorial Highway to its which acknowledges the Black nd push education forward?
Design Fr
ramework
OPEN SPACE+INSTITUTION
TRANSIT
SYSTEM
VEGETATION
PHYSICAL BARRIERS
?
?
SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE
THEME
EXISTING
Vacant Land /Parking Lot Dead End Pedestrian Vehicle
PROPOSED
Design
n Pilot
SITE PLAN
WATER
VEGETATION
HEALING STRATEGY
1
Sunken Terrains+ Colorful Ground Covers
2
Evergreen Trees
1
Memorial Fountain
2
Healing Ring
PROGRAMS 5
4
14 13
12
11
COMMUNITY
EDUCATION
10 1
Education Gallery
2
Infrastructure Gallery
3
Community Archive
4
History Boards
5
Lincoln Wall
6
Memorial Fountain
7
Plaza
8
Landbridge
9
Meditation Plaza
10 Healing Ring 11 Swimming Pool 12 Community Garden 13 Basketball Court
ECONOMY
14 Recreation Facilities 15 Getaway Cabin 16 Pavillion/Farmer Market
15 16
9
6
5
1
3
8 2 7
4
15
4
SUNKEN GALLERY
LINCOLN PARK
Thank
k You