BACK STORY

END PIECE | BACKSTORY

Class of 1921

Photo courtesy Alabama Department of Archives and History

“We the Board of Trustees and faculty of the Plateau Public School and citizens of Mobile and county do hereby extend you an invitation to deliver the commencement address of the Plateau School on Friday night, May 31, at 8 p.m. We beg your acceptance and wish to know the expenses. The people of this section of the state are more than anxious to hear you.”

– excerpt from a handwritten letter dated February 12, 1912, by principal Isaiah J. Whitley to Dr. Booker T. Washington LOOKING TO EDUCATE THEIR CHILDREN, descendants from the last slave ship, Clotilda, established a school in Africatown's Plateau community in 1880. Over the next 30 years, the school morphed and shifted at various locations, and in 1910, Isaiah J. Whitley took the helm as principal. Whitley was described as broad-minded and progressive. He transformed the school, previously known as The Plateau Normal and Industrial Institute, into the Mobile County Training School, the fi rst school of its kind for Blacks in the state of Alabama. Seen below is the fi rst graduating class with Whitley seated amongst them. According to archive records, the majority of the women in the photo would go on to hold teaching positions in Mobile County. Two ladies pictured, Hattie Keeby and Agnes Finley, went on to study at Tuskegee Institute, while the two men accepted positions as principals in the Andalusia, Alabama, school system.

Back row, left to right: Alex Reid, Jr., Georgia Wymon, Evelyn McCall, Hatti e Keeby and S. L. Bradley, Jr. Front row, left to right: Flora Hauze, Iona Adams, I. J. Whitley (principal), Lola Brown and Agnes Finley

4

Number of teachers listed on the Plateau Public School's lett erhead in 1912: Isaiah J. Whitley, Miss M. L. Williams, Miss M. G. Stanford and Mrs. Clara Brookshire.

80

Average number of days Black students in the South spent in school during the 1919-20 academic year; white students spent an average of 121.

1.5k

Populati on of Plateau in 1921; the community peaked at around 15,000 with the arrival of paper mills but has since fallen to below 2,000. 1880: The fi rst school in the Plateau community, called The Plateau Normal and Industrial Insti tute for the Educati on of the Head, Heart and Hands of the Colored Youth, is established at the Old Bapti st Church, now known as Union Bapti st Church

1898 - 1910: School relocates to a donated one-room building; classes held there for several years before school moves again, this ti me to Booman's Union Hall, then later to Yorktown Bapti st

1910: Now part of the Mobile County public school system, the name changes to Mobile County Training School (MCTS)

1915: School destroyed by fi re; principal Isaiah J. Whitley secures new quarters that includes industrial and domesti c science buildings

1934: MCTS is accredited by the Southern Associati on of Colleges and Secondary Schools, making it the only Black school in the county to receive the disti ncti on

1946: Due to overpopulati on at MCTS, Central High School is established, located on Davis Avenue

1967: Sixth grade is added

1970: The school is reorganized and transformed from a high school to a middle school

Are you related to anyone in this photo? Let us know! Email athornton@pmtpublishing.com.