Stratton High School

Stratton Elementary School

Mark Bollinger

Quick Facts

Location:

Beckley, WV

Significance:

Stratton High School, named after Reverend Daniel Stratton, was the first all-black high school in Raleigh County.

OPEN TO PUBLIC:

No

Amenities

1 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits

African American Heritage Driving Tour Stop 15: African American Education in West Virginia

Note: The historic high school was torn down to make room for a new elementary school building. Listen to the school’s story on the NPS APP and to see a picture of the historic school walk over to the wayside exhibit located at the stop light.

If using the NPS app, to listen to the audio narrative, press the green button below or read the audio narrative text below.

Audio Narrative

Written by: Mark Bollinger
Narrated by: Dr. Brucella Jordan

In the colonial and antebellum years of the United States, the education of African Americans was mainly provided by missionary and charitable organizations. Most slaveholders were fearful that an educated enslaved population would threaten their authority, spread abolitionist materials, and lead to insurrections. Southern states, including Virginia in 1819, passed laws prohibiting the education of enslaved people and free black people. These laws prohibiting the teaching of African Americans remained in effect until 1863 when West Virginia was carved out of the western portion of Virginia.

The adoption of West Virginia’s Constitution in 1863 provided for the establishment of state schools, but made no references to the education of African Americans. Three years later, the Legislature passed a bill providing public schools for African Americans. This bill called for the establishment of colored schools in sub-districts containing at least thirty colored children between the ages of six and twenty-one. They had to maintain an average attendance of fifteen students, or face closure.¹ The law was eventually amended to allow the establishment of schools in districts whenever there were at least ten Black children of school age.  An 1872 revision of the State Constitution stipulated that White and Black students should not be taught in the same school.

In 1866, the first public school for black students was established in Parkersburg. The following year, Storer College in Harpers Ferry opened as the only school in the state where black youth could receive academic and normal training. Storer College offered courses in gardening, animal husbandry, sewing, instrumental music, cookery, blacksmithing and teaching. Its’ graduates were some of the first African Americans to become teachers in West Virginia’s black schools. The State Legislature eventually established the West Virginia Colored Institute—now West Virginia State University—in 1891. The Bluefield Colored Institute, now Bluefield State University, followed four years later. Both institutions provided teacher training.

The need for African American teachers increased drastically in the late 1800s with the opening of coal fields in the southern part of the state. The coal industry attracted large numbers of African Americans seeking good- paying jobs in the mines and better education for their children. Population in the southern West Virginia counties boomed. By 1906, there were 9,874 black students attending school in the state, the majority in Fayette, McDowell, Kanawha, Greenbrier, and Mercer counties. Black schools included 219 common, 42 grade schools, and 5 high schools and employed 310 African American teachers. These teachers were paid an average annual salary of $231, the same as white teachers at the time.

The first school for African Americans in Raleigh County was a one-room log structure built on Mills Branch in 1873. In nearby Summers County, the first black school was opened in 1878 with 15 pupils. Two years later, the first school for African American students in Fayette County was established at Quinnimont. These small community schools provided education only through the eighth grade, and for a school term of four to five months. Black students who were able to attend high school had to travel by train to larger population areas where an all-black high school existed. Among the first African American high schools in the region were Stratton in Raleigh County, DuBois in Fayette County, and Lincoln in Summers County.Stratton High School was established in 1918 over three centuries after the first black enslaved people arrived in Virginia in 1619. Stratton began as a two-room structure with nearly 80 students. In 1938, a two-story brick building with a gymnasium and auditorium was constructed. Considered the most up-to-date black high school in the state, it operated until 1956, when its students were integrated into the all-white Woodrow Wilson High School. Today, the building houses Stratton Elementary School.

¹ State Superintendent of Schools, The History of Education In West Virginia, Tribune Printing Company, Charleston, 1907

Sources:Trent, W.W. Mountaineer Education: A Story of Education in West Virginia 1885-1957, West Virginia Division of Culture and History. wvculture.org/history/education/trent.

State Superintendent of Schools, The History of Education in West Virginia, Tribune Printing Company, Charleston, 1907.

Woodson, Carter G. Early Negro Education in West Virginia, The West Virginia Collegiate Institute, Institute, WV 1921.

Woodson, Carter G. The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1915.

Webb, L. Dean. The History of American Education: A Great American Experiment, New Jersey: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.

Additional Information

Gone are the days of the early 1800s in which African Americans were mainly provided education by missionaries and charitable organizations. The WV legislature passed a bill in 1866 that provided public schools for African Americans, but revised it in 1872 and stipulated that white and black students would be taught separately.

In 1919, the first all-black high school in Raleigh County, named after Reverend Daniel Stratton, was opened and graduated its first two students that same year. The school had already grown to 37 students and 10 faculty by 1933. In 1939, Stratton High School moved to a new facility on South Fayette Street which presently houses Stratton Elementary. By 1967, Stratton High School’s final year, the graduating class had grown to 109 students and consisted of 32 staff members, 10 of which were original graduates.During the 48 years that Stratton served the community as an all-black high school, it graduated 2,786 students, some of which became doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, nurses, and ministers.

For the full story go to: Early African American Education: Stratton High School; Beckley, WV

Driving Directions:

Physical Address: 1129 S. Fayette Street, Beckley, WV 25801
GPS Coordinates: N37.766545 -W81.173965

From Beckley, WV: Travel on I-77 north or south to Exit 42. Follow the exit ramp onto Highway 16 north/97 east toward Mabscott and Beckley, WV (Robert C. Bryd Drive).  Travel 1.3 miles to Neville Street in Beckley, WV. Turn right onto Neville Street and travel 5 blocks to South Fayette Street. Turn right onto South Fayette Street and travel 1.2 miles to Stratton Elementary School on the left. Tour Stop #15 and parking is on the right across from the school.

Directions to the next Tour Stop:

Hunter Cemetery
Physical Address: 99 Antonio Avenue, Beckley, WV 25801
GPS Coordinates: N37.765073  -W81.171998

Leave your parking place and continue to travel south on South Fayette Street for one block. Turn right onto Antonio Avenue and drive to the top of the street. Tour Stop #16 and parking is along the fence that encloses the cemetery.

 

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