Site of Henry High School
Elkhart, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Despite adverse conditions, African Americans in Texas in the late 19th century worked hard to provide their children with an education. Students in this area attended Mt. Moriah, Boxes Creek, Beulah, Washington Chapel, Union Hope and New Mt. Zion schools. The abbreviated school year allowed the children to help their parents during planting and harvest seasons, and most students focused only on the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. In the 1930s, Hattie Jamerson, of the Mt. Moriah community, urged local residents to build a high school to serve the rural area's African American students. John Henry Sims, born and educated in Mt. Moriah, returned here in 1932 after earning a teaching certificate in Kansas. Inspired by Jamerson's efforts, he met with Julian P. Greer of the Elkhart Independent School District, and the school board selected a six-acre site here for a school building. Community residents razed the old school buildings and brought the lumber to use in the new construction, which began in 1937. The school was named for its first principal, George H. Henry, and it opened in January 1938. Students in grades 7-11 met at one end, and the other side housed elementary grades. Students could take basic classes, as well as science, history, homemaking, farming and shop. After Henry retired in 1946, H.J. Hurt served as principal. In 1939, the first five students graduated from Henry High School, which remained open until 1963, when it merged into Green Bay High School in Tucker. Elementary classes remained until integration with Elkhart schools in 1967. Since 1980, former Henry High students have met biennially to celebrate their educational roots and the community's historic efforts in providing for its children. (2004)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the rural communities around Elkhart, African American families long made do with scattered one-room schools and shortened terms that bent to the planting and harvest seasons. In the 1930s Hattie Jamerson pressed neighbors to build a proper high school, and teacher John Henry Sims helped win a site from the Elkhart district. Residents tore down the old schoolhouses and reused the lumber, opening Henry High School in 1938; it served the area until 1963, and its alumni still gather to honor the effort.
Why it matters
Built with donated labor and salvaged lumber in the Jim Crow era, Henry High School embodies how Black communities created educational opportunity for their children against long odds.
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Related people
- · Hattie Jamerson
- · John Henry Sims
- · George H. Henry
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Beulah Baptist Church
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