HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Site of Rincon/Douglass School

San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas

Marker Inscription

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the resolution of issues associated with education of newly freed slaves influenced the nature of Southern education well into the 20th century. The federal government established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands to coordinate the transition from slavery to freedom. Among the more visible of the Bureau's programs was the organization and building of schools. The first free public school for Blacks in San Antonio was built on this site in the late 1860s. Operated by the local office of the Freedmen's Bureau, the school was a two-story stone structure. Called Rincon School because of its location on Rincon (now St. Mary's) Street, the school provided instruction to students of all ages. It was the only Bureau school in Texas to receive support from a local government. The City of San Antonio assumed operation of the school in 1871, adding it to what eventually became the San Antonio Independent School District. The name was changed to Riverside School in 1890, and to Frederick Douglass School in 1904. Ten years later the school was relocated to a two-story brick building at what is now 318 Martin Luther King Drive. An important part of the city's history, Rincon/Douglass School has been integral to the heritage of a large portion of San Antonio's population. The early example established by the Rincon School and similar schools played a fundamental role in defining the nature of the segregated school system in Texas and at the same time inspired support for universal public education in the South. (1989, 2010)

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

As the Civil War ended, the federal Freedmen's Bureau set out to educate newly freed people across the South, and in the late 1860s it built San Antonio's first free public school for Black students here—a two-story stone building on Rincon Street. Uniquely among Texas Bureau schools, it drew support from local government, and the City took over its operation in 1871, folding it into what became the San Antonio ISD. Renamed for Frederick Douglass in 1904, the school carried the heritage of a large part of the city's population.

Why it matters

Rincon/Douglass shows Reconstruction education taking root in Texas—and how a Freedmen's Bureau school helped shape both segregation and the broader push for public schooling in the South.

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