Marian Anderson High School
Madisonville, Madison County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1880, Madisonville's first school for African American students was established on the northeast side of town in a one-room schoolhouse. Spencer Davis served as the first teacher. In 1885, the school was moved to this site, on land donated by the Rev. Neal Mccloud, who taught the school's 40 students. Other early teachers included Ministers. Despite the difficulties students and educators faced, the school continued to grow. By the 1920s, a new facility was needed. Funded by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, a new schoolhouse opened in 1926. It had a cafeteria and eight classrooms, some of which could be opened together to form an auditorium. The school was the site of interscholastic events, proms, parent-teacher association meetings and special programs. Citizens also gathered at the school for the community Juneteenth celebration. In addition to its regular curriculum, the school offered woodwork, painting and general repair training, as well as facilities for canning and for a farmers' shop during the Great Depression. In the 1940s and 1950s, several rural schools consolidated with Madisonville Colored High School. During the 1950s, the school district constructed new facilities at this site, and the students voted to change the school's name to Marian Anderson High School, in honor of the world-renowned contralto. Madisonville was one of the last school districts in the state to integrate, and Marian Anderson High School closed in December 1970, serving later as an intermediate campus. An alumni group continues to meet, raising funds for scholarships to benefit Madisonville's youth and working to preserve the history of the city's African American Community. (2004)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Madisonville's first school for African American students opened in 1880 in a one-room building, moving in 1885 to land donated by the Rev. Neal McCloud. In 1926 a new schoolhouse funded by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation brought eight classrooms and a cafeteria, and the campus became a center for Juneteenth celebrations and community gatherings. Later renamed for contralto Marian Anderson, the school closed in 1970 as one of the last districts in the state to integrate, and its alumni still fund scholarships in its memory.
Why it matters
A Rosenwald school renamed for a barrier-breaking Black artist, Marian Anderson High School embodies both the self-built educational institutions of the Jim Crow South and the long, uneven road to integration.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Rev. Neal McCloud
- · Marian Anderson
- · Julius Rosenwald
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sam Houston Industrial and Training School
Huntsville, TX
Born in Huntsville in 1864 to enslaved parents, Samuel W. Houston earned degrees from Hampton, Atlanta University, and Howard before returning home to build schools for African American children in an era when the state funneled only Black-paid taxes toward their education. Around 1906 he opened classes in the rented Galilee Methodist Church, and the Sam Houston Industrial and Training School grew to serve hundreds of students statewide with vocational and academic programs. Merged into the Huntsville school system by 1930, it became Sam Houston High School and endured until integration in 1968.
Rogersville
Huntsville, TX
Rogersville is Huntsville's oldest African-American neighborhood, born when former mayor Micajah Rogers began selling tracts to freed people in 1866 — among the buyers, Sam Houston's former body servant Joshua Houston. Freedpeople here built homes, churches, and businesses from blacksmith shops to cafes, and turned their churches into schools when public ones were denied. It became the heart of Huntsville's Black community and the home of its annual Juneteenth celebration.
George Washington Grant and Grant's Colony
Huntsville, TX
An Alabama native who came to Texas in 1831, George Washington Grant built a sprawling enterprise of stagecoaches, sawmills, and nearly 10,000 acres around Huntsville, and helped found Sam Houston Normal Institute and served as sheriff and county judge during Reconstruction. Though he had held people in slavery before the war, after Emancipation he sold and donated land to freedmen and, with the Quakers and the Freedmen's Bureau, created the community he called Harmony Settlement—better known as Grant's Colony—complete with farmhouses, a cotton gin, and a school open to children of any race.
Richards Colored School
Richards, TX
Schooling for Richards' African American children began around 1913 in St. Thomas Methodist Episcopal Church, then moved to the Masonic Lodge Hall and later a two-story schoolhouse near the railroad. Fire repeatedly destroyed the buildings between 1920 and 1937, yet the school endured, absorbing nearby communities and offering everything from basketball to spelling bees and county-fair competitions. A new school built in 1938 was renamed in 1962 for longtime principal and coach W. E. Hall, and it closed in 1966 when Richards schools integrated.