African American Education in College Station
College Station, Brazos County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formal education for African Americans in Brazos County began as a result of the Public School Act of 1871. Classes were held in many small community and church-related schools, and by 1923 there were 127 African American students in the A&M Consolidated School District. Buildings accommodated only elementary school students until an agreement was reached to bus pupils to the Kemp High School in Bryan. The A&M School District paid the expenses. In the 1930s the number of African American students grew steadily. Rising costs of tuition and transportation prompted the A&M District to approve and build a high school in College Station. The A&M Consolidated Negro School opened in 1941. An athletic field was added in 1946 and the name of the school changed to Lincoln School. The building was expanded in 1948. A fire in 1966 destroyed one of three classroom buildings displacing 100 students. The burned facilities were not rebuilt. The City of College Station leased the land and the remaining five buildings in the late 1960s, and restored the site in 1972. The city bought the land in 1978 and dedicated the Lincoln Center in 1980. The former school is now the home of many community activities in College Station. (1996)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Formal schooling for Black children in Brazos County took root after the Public School Act of 1871, first in scattered community and church schools and later in a district that bused older students to Bryan. Rising numbers led the A&M Consolidated District to open its own high school in 1941, soon renamed Lincoln School, which served the community until a 1966 fire and the closures that followed. The City of College Station preserved what remained, and in 1980 the campus reopened as the Lincoln Center, still a gathering place today.
Why it matters
The site records how a segregated community built and sustained its own institutions of learning against long odds, a chapter central to the African American struggle for equal education.
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Related events
- · Public School Act of 1871
Themes & tags
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