Site of Booker T. Washington School
Bonham, Fannin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
According to local tradition the Bonham Colored School began in a one-room structure in northwest Bonham in the early 1890s. Enrollment in the 4-teacher school grew from 40 pupils in 1904 to 216 in 1911. By 1920 the school offered 11 grades and was called Booker T. Washington. A new school complex, funded in part by the Rosenwald Foundation, was built on 10 acres here in 1928; Ray Seay served as principal. The school expanded to 12 grades in 1940. Until 1966, when it closed due to school integration, the school served as a focal point for Bonham's entire African American community. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Beginning in a single room in the early 1890s, Bonham's school for Black children grew into an institution that by 1920 offered eleven grades under the name Booker T. Washington. In 1928 a new complex rose here on ten acres, funded in part by the Rosenwald Foundation, whose partnership with African American communities built thousands of schools across the segregated South. It anchored Bonham's Black community until integration closed it in 1966.
Why it matters
Rosenwald schools like this one were a lifeline of education under Jim Crow, and their closing at integration marks both a hard-won civil-rights victory and the loss of a beloved community institution.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Bonham's school for Black children began in the early 1890s, the South was hardening the system of legal segregation known as Jim Crow. Black and white children attended separate schools, and the schools for Black children were almost always funded far below the white ones. Families and teachers made up the difference with sacrifice and determination.
In the early twentieth century, a partnership between the educator Booker T. Washington and the Chicago businessman Julius Rosenwald, a leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, led to a major school-building effort. The Rosenwald Fund offered matching money to help build schools for Black children across the South, on the condition that local communities contribute too. Black families often raised a large share of the cost themselves.
Bonham, the seat of Fannin County in North Texas, is named for James Butler Bonham, a defender of the Alamo. Its African American community built its own institutions within the limits segregation set, and the school was at the center of them.
People & events
Local tradition holds that the Bonham Colored School started in a one-room building in northwest Bonham in the early 1890s. It grew fast. Under four teachers, enrollment went from 40 students in 1904 to 216 in 1911, more than five times as many in seven years. That growth reflects how much the community wanted an education for its children.
By 1920 the school offered eleven grades and had taken the name Booker T. Washington. That honored the best-known Black educator of the time, whose ideas about schooling and self-help were widely admired. In 1928 a new school complex opened on ten acres at this site, paid for partly by the Rosenwald Foundation, with Ray Seay as principal. A twelfth grade was added in 1940.
The story ends in 1966, when the school closed because of integration. For roughly seventy years it had been much more than a school. The marker calls it a focal point for Bonham's entire African American community, a place for gatherings and celebrations, a source of pride, and the place where generations of families sent their children to learn.
Its place in the American story
The Rosenwald schools are one of the most important chapters in the history of American education. Thousands were built across the South during the program's run, and for many Black children they offered the best schooling available under segregation. Booker T. Washington School in Bonham is part of that large, community-financed effort.
Its closing carries the double meaning found in many Black communities of that era. Integration, won through decades of legal and moral struggle that included the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, was a real civil rights victory. But it often meant closing beloved Black schools, losing jobs for Black teachers and principals, and losing a community's center. Both sides of that history are true.
Remembering this site honors the families who insisted on educating their children while the system worked against them, and who turned one room into a twelve-grade institution that held a community together.
If you visit
This marker identifies a site, so come prepared to remember more than to look at old buildings. Stand on the ten acres where the 1928 complex stood and imagine it full of students, teachers, and families at ballgames, programs, and graduations.
Think about the numbers on the marker: one room, then 40 students, then 216, then eleven grades, then twelve. Each step shows a community investing in its children's future when the odds were stacked against it. That is the heart of this place.
Bonham makes a good stop on a trip through North Texas. The town also has the library and museum honoring Sam Rayburn, the longtime Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, so you can spend a day with Fannin County's history. Visiting this site along with the town square gives you a fuller picture of who built Bonham and what they built it for.
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
- · Booker T. Washington
- · Ray Seay
Related events
- · Rosenwald school construction
- · School integration
Themes & tags
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