Anadarko Rosenwald School

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Anadarko Rosenwald School in Rusk County. Now, before we get to the school itself, you have to understand where this story begins. It begins in 1868, and it begins with people who had just walked out of bondage.

Former slaves of Julien Devereaux's Monte Verdi plantation settled the surrounding community of Anadarko, sometimes written Anadarco, and they did not arrive with nothing. They arrived with each other. Land for the church and the community was provided by descendants of the Devereaux family, and on that land, newly freed African Americans, led by Reverend Green Lewis and his wife Phoebe Devereaux, established the Anadarko Christian Church.

Church records put that in 1868, the same year the community itself took root. And that church did double duty from the start. Because the first public school for African Americans in that area was held right inside the Anadarko Christian Church.

No dedicated building, no grand endowment. Just a congregation willing to share its walls with learning. Now jump forward to 1917.

Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Booker T. Washington established the Rosenwald Fund, with the purpose of assisting in the foundation of schools for African Americans in the South. That fund would eventually reach Rusk County.

In 1926, the Anadarko Colored Rosenwald School was built. And here is where I want you to pay attention to the numbers, because they tell a story all by themselves. The Rosenwald Fund contributed nine hundred dollars.

Public donations brought in two thousand one hundred dollars. And the students and parents, the families who needed this school the most, contributed six hundred dollars of their own money. Private contributions.

From people who had precious little to spare. That building went up on the strength of all three. It was a three-teacher school, typical of the rural schools built by the Rosenwald Foundation.

Nothing fancy. Everything necessary. Over the years the school's name changed more than once.

It became the Laneville Colored School. Then Allen High School, named for U. E.

Allen, a former principal. And eventually it merged with the Laneville Independent School District. Then came the years 1967 to 1969.

The old classrooms were moved to expand the campus and accommodate additional students after integration. The building that a community had scraped and sacrificed to raise, shifted and repurposed, until finally it stopped functioning altogether. What remains today is the pier and beam foundation where the gymnasium was erected.

That is it. That is what is left in the ground. But here is the thing about a foundation.

It is, by definition, what everything else was built on. And what was built here, starting in a church in 1868 and continuing through every dollar those families donated in 1926, was the first public education African Americans in that area ever had. The building may be gone.

The foundation is still there. And so is the story.

What the marker says

In 1868, former slaves of Julien Devereaux's Monte Verdi plantation settled the surrounding community of Anadarko (Anadarco). Land for the church and community was provided by descendants of the Devereaux family. Church records indicate that in 1868 newly freed African Americans led by Reverend Green Lewis and his wife, Phoebe Devereaux, established the Anadarko Christian Church. The first public school for African Americans was held in the Anadarko Christian Church. In 1917, Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and Booker T. Washington established the Rosenwald Fund to assist in the foundation of schools for African Americans in the South. With money from the Rosenwald Fund ($900), public donations ($2,100) and private contributions from students and parents ($600), the Anadarko Colored "Rosenwald" School was built in 1926. The building was a three-teacher school typical of the rural schools built by the Rosenwald Foundation. Over the years, the name of the school changed several times to Laneville Colored School to Allen High School (named for U. E. Allen, former principal) prior to merging with the Laneville Independent School District. The old classrooms were moved to expand the campus during the years 1967-69 to accommodate additional students after integration. The only remnant of this historic Rosenwald School is the pier and beam foundation where the gymnasium was erected. The building may no longer function but the memory of the first public school in the area will live on as an important reminder of early African American educational efforts. (2016)