Frederick Douglass Elementary School
Palestine, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
For nearly a century, this site served African-American school children of Palestine’s Old Town community. The school board established the “First Ward School for Coloreds” in 1875. James M. McMeans was the first principal, and Jurlee Sims-Lee and Alex Vincent were the first teachers. In 1889, a $2,000 frame building replaced the original schoolhouse. The Palestine school board changed the school’s name to Frederick Douglass Elementary School in 1898, following the death of the prominent civil rights leader. A 1912 fire destroyed the Douglass School, and classes were held temporarily at Mt. Vernon Methodist Church until a new brick schoolhouse was completed on the original site. The Douglass School housed first through sixth grade. Twice a year, the school hosted meetings of the City Teachers’ Association, an organization of African-American teachers. General assemblies were held each Friday, with students presenting programs in the form of singing, storytelling, poetry reading and spelling bees. Each class contributed to the Douglass School display for the Anderson County Fair each October. Three generations of the Freeman family served as Douglass School principals: William (1901-09), Byron (1927-42, 1945-57) and Jack (1957-67). In May 1967, the school board announced that Douglass School would be closed permanently at the end of the school year. Teachers and students were reassigned to other schools in the district. The school building was then used for a variety of small businesses before being torn down in the 1980s. Douglass School has the distinction of being the only public school built in the old town neighborhood. For generations in Palestine, it operated as an educational, social and community center. (2009)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Opened in 1875 as the 'First Ward School for Coloreds,' this was the only public school ever built in Palestine's Old Town neighborhood, and for nearly a century it educated the community's African-American children. Renamed for Frederick Douglass in 1898 after the great abolitionist's death, it rebuilt in brick after a 1912 fire and became far more than a schoolhouse — hosting teacher associations, Friday assemblies, and county-fair exhibits. Three generations of the Freeman family led it before desegregation closed its doors in 1967.
Why it matters
The Douglass School embodies how Black communities under segregation built their own enduring institutions of learning and civic life, and how the promise of that self-made education was folded into the larger fight for equality.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the years right after the Civil War, formerly enslaved African Americans across the South set out to claim something that slavery had criminalized: an education. Schooling became one of the very first priorities of freedom, and Black families, churches, and communities poured extraordinary effort into building schools, often with little help and against stiff resistance.
This was the era of Reconstruction and the long, hard decades that followed. Public schooling was expanding, but almost everywhere in the South it was rigidly segregated by race. Schools for Black children were routinely underfunded compared with those for white children, which made the commitment of Black teachers, principals, and parents all the more remarkable — they built lasting institutions on thin resources.
The school remembered by this marker opened its doors in this very period, in 1875, in an established African American neighborhood. It would go on to serve the community for nearly a century, spanning Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, the Progressive era, both world wars, and finally the civil rights era — a single institution living through the entire arc of segregated public education.
People & events
It began as the "First Ward School for Coloreds" in 1875, with James M. McMeans as its first principal and Jurlee Sims-Lee and Alex Vincent among its first teachers. In 1889 a two-thousand-dollar frame building replaced the original schoolhouse, and in 1898, following the death of the great civil rights leader, the school was renamed Frederick Douglass Elementary — a fitting tribute for a place devoted to lifting up a community through learning.
Disaster struck in 1912 when fire destroyed the building. Classes carried on temporarily in a local Methodist church until a new brick schoolhouse rose on the original site — an act of community resilience as much as construction. The school housed grades one through six and became far more than a classroom. It hosted twice-yearly meetings of an association of African American teachers, held Friday assemblies where students sang, told stories, read poetry, and competed in spelling bees, and mounted a display at the county fair each October.
Running like a thread through its history is one remarkable family: three generations of the Freeman family served as principals — William in the early 1900s, Byron across two long stretches from the 1920s into the 1950s, and Jack through the school's final years. In May 1967, under school desegregation, the board announced the school would close for good at the end of the year, and its teachers and students were reassigned across the district. The building later housed small businesses before being torn down in the 1980s.
Its place in the American story
This school embodies one of the most important and least-told chapters of American history: how Black communities under segregation built their own enduring institutions of learning and civic life. All across the country, schools like this one were not merely places to teach reading and arithmetic — they were the beating hearts of their neighborhoods, doubling as gathering halls, cultural centers, and sources of collective pride.
The renaming for Frederick Douglass links this local schoolyard to a towering national figure. Douglass had escaped slavery to become the era's most powerful voice for abolition and equality, and communities that named schools after him were declaring, in brick and chalk, what they believed their children could become. That single choice ties a small East Texas school to the largest currents of the American freedom struggle.
The school's closing in 1967 belongs to the national story too. Desegregation was a hard-won victory of the civil rights movement, yet it often meant that beloved Black schools were shuttered and their communities scattered into other buildings. The bittersweet truth captured here — that integration cost communities institutions they had built with their own hands — is a reality playing out in towns across America in those same years.
If you visit
Stand at this site and picture what is no longer there: a brick schoolhouse that, for generations, was the center of a neighborhood's life. The building is gone, razed decades ago, but the ground it stood on carried nearly a century of Friday assemblies, spelling bees, and county-fair displays.
Let the marker slow you down. Read the roll of names — the first principal and teachers, and especially the three generations of one family who led the school across some sixty years. That kind of continuity is rare, and it tells you how deeply this institution was woven into the families who sustained it.
If you're exploring the town's Old Town community, treat this as an essential stop for understanding the neighborhood's heart. It pairs powerfully with the town's other markers to Black education and history, letting you trace how a community built, rebuilt after fire, and cherished its schools — and what was lost, as well as gained, when the era of segregated schooling finally ended.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · James M. McMeans
- · Frederick Douglass
- · William Freeman
- · Byron Freeman
- · Jack Freeman
Related events
- · Closure under school desegregation, 1967
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
William Freeman
Palestine, TX
Born into slavery in 1863 to Charlotte Freeman, a plantation maid, William Freeman gained his freedom as a toddler and went on to study at Prairie View, training as both a teacher and a brick mason. He helped rename Palestine's Colored School for Frederick Douglass in 1898 and served as principal of Douglass Elementary from 1901 to 1909, even as he made and laid bricks for many of the town's buildings. His son and grandson followed him as principals of the school for forty-six years.
Timothy Stephen Smith
Palestine, TX
Born in 1902 to a father who had escaped slavery, Timothy Stephen Smith earned a degree from Prairie View A&M and taught school for forty-two years. Convinced that Anderson County's voting boundaries diluted Black political strength, he and others sued in 1973; Judge William Wayne Justice agreed, striking down a "racially motivated gerrymander" and forcing a switch to single-member districts. Similar success against the City of Palestine soon followed, opening the way for the county's first Black officeholders.
Alonzo Marion Story
Palestine, TX
Born in New Orleans and college-educated, Alonzo Marion Story came to Texas young and devoted his life to teaching mathematics, settling in Palestine in 1912 to instruct students at the town's school for African American children. He served for decades as teacher and principal, staying on through his final years even after losing his eyesight, and continued tutoring from home after retiring. The community named schools in his honor, a testament to a man revered across the era of segregated education.
Site of Northeast Texas Christian Theological and Industrial College
Palestine, TX
Founded in 1900 by Black members of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) under the Rev. A. J. Hurdle, this convention set out to build a college for its people, and by 1904 a building association of women within the group had raised enough to buy forty-nine acres near Palestine. The Northeast Texas Christian Theological and Industrial College opened with seven students in 1912, its students studying in the classroom and farming the college's own land. When fire destroyed the main building around 1920 the school closed, and its remaining structures were later razed, leaving no visible trace.