African American Education in Gonzales
Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Education for American Negro citizens of Gonzales began in the 1870s at the home of Myrtle Moses Mathis. More formalized instruction took place in the 1890s when the school occupied a 2-story community building. A brick schoolhouse was erected about 1914 on land donated by W.M. Fly and Josephine K. Peck. It was named George Edwards High School in 1922 and served 300 students and 8 teachers by 1940. Edwards High School was closed in 1964 as schools were desegregated in compliance with the federal Civil Rights Act. The school was sold in the 1970s. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Education for Black residents of Gonzales began in the 1870s in the home of Myrtle Moses Mathis and grew more formal in the 1890s within a two-story community building. About 1914 a brick schoolhouse rose on donated land, and in 1922 it was named George Edwards High School, serving some 300 students and eight teachers by 1940. The school closed in 1964 as districts desegregated under the federal Civil Rights Act.
Why it matters
The story of Edwards High School traces the whole arc of segregated Black education in the South, from a teacher's parlor to a community institution to the desegregation that ended it.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Myrtle Moses Mathis
- · George Edwards
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Riverside School
Gonzales, TX
Opened in 1914 as the Water Street Mexican School and later renamed Riverside, this one-story brick schoolhouse was the only facility for Mexican American children in segregated Gonzales. As enrollment grew it absorbed a surplus Army building from Camp Swift and the relocated Stieren School, serving Hispanic students until 1948 and then African American students until 1965.
Rosenwald School
Luling, TX
Opened in 1925, Luling's Rosenwald School was built with help from the fund Julius Rosenwald established in 1917 to endow schools for African American children across the South. Replacing the earlier Luling Colored School of 1874, its 2.5-acre campus held classrooms for ten grades plus shop, library, and home economics and vocational departments, and under principal P. W. Tucker it earned a strong local reputation until it closed in 1966.
St. Paul's African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church
Moulton, TX
After emancipation, AME missionaries began serving the Black community around Moulton, and in 1867 Reverend E. Hammitt became the county's first Black AME minister on a wide circuit. When Moulton was founded in 1887, its founders donated land where the congregation built a modest one-room church, long known locally as Moore's Chapel. The building doubled as the community's African American school after World War I, sustaining faith and education together until the congregation finally closed its doors in 2007.
The Pilgrim Home
Gonzales, TX
This center-hall home with its double fireplaces and wide pine floors was built in 1883 by Carey J. Pilgrim for his bride, Mary Fleda Boothe. Carey edited the Gonzales Inquirer, and he was the son of T. J. Pilgrim, remembered for founding the first Sunday School in Texas. Recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1965, the house links two generations of a family notable in Texas journalism and religious education.