Powell Point School
Kendleton, Fort Bend County, Texas
Marker Inscription
William E. Kendall, an Anglo lawyer from Richmond, Texas, subdivided his plantation here into 100-acre farm tracts in 1869. He sold the land exclusively to Freedmen and by the 1880s a distinctly African American community named Kendleton had developed here. In 1890 local A. M. E. churches built three one-room schools to form Common School District No. 4, an all-African American district which included the original land grant of Elizabeth Powell. Tellie B. Mitchell, a Kendleton native and graduate of Wiley College (1903), returned to Kendleton and established Powell Point School in 1904 in a two-room schoolhouse. The school prospered and in 1918 graduated six students, five of whom went on to college and became educators. In 1923 Mitchell persuaded the Rosenwald Foundation to grant funds to build a new Powell Point School facility here with six classrooms, a library, and an auditorium. The school became a model institution and entry into its student body was an advantage sought by African American throughout southeast Texas. T. B. Mitchell served as school principal until 1954. Powell Point, today an elementary school, is a locally revered institution which symbolizes Kendleton's unique cultural heritage and promise for the future. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After lawyer William E. Kendall subdivided his plantation into farm tracts sold exclusively to Freedmen in 1869, a thriving African American community named Kendleton took root. In 1890 local A.M.E. churches built one-room schools, and in 1904 Wiley College graduate Tellie B. Mitchell returned home to found Powell Point School, which flourished so that five of its six 1918 graduates went on to college and teaching careers. With Rosenwald Foundation funds, Mitchell built a six-classroom facility in 1923 that became a model institution sought by Black families across southeast Texas.
Why it matters
Powell Point embodies the self-determination of a Freedmen's colony that built its own schools, and the Rosenwald-era achievement of Black education against the odds of the Jim Crow South.
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Related people
- · William E. Kendall
- · Tellie B. Mitchell
- · Elizabeth Powell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Taylor Ray
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