Tarver School
Del Rio, Val Verde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Records show a school for African American students in Del Rio was organized as early as 1901, closing in the 1920s. Del Rio ISD used part of a 1929-30 bond package to build a one-room stucco exterior school on Ware Street. The school, first known as Brackenridge, had few books or equipment, often using materials discarded from other schools. Typically, each grade included just a few students. In the 1950s, the faculty numbered one principal and three teachers. A building moved in from Laughlin Air Force Base was divided into junior and senior high grades. When Principal W. H. Tarver died, the school was renamed in his honor. With the end of segregation, the school closed in 1957. (2013)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Del Rio organized a school for African American students as early as 1901, and in 1929–30 the district built a one-room stucco schoolhouse on Ware Street. Chronically underfunded, it made do with books and equipment discarded from white schools, teaching a handful of students per grade under a tiny faculty. Later renamed for principal W. H. Tarver, the school closed in 1957 as segregation ended.
Why it matters
Tarver School documents the separate and unequal education Black Texans endured under Jim Crow, and its 1957 closing marks the beginning of the end of legally segregated schooling.
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Related people
- · W. H. Tarver
Themes & tags
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