DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The story of Black education in Seguin, Texas — and it starts, as so many good things do, with a church and two determined men of God. The Second Baptist Church sponsored it, and in 1871, the first public school for Black students in Seguin opened its doors.
Now think about that for a moment. Eighteen seventy-one. The ink on Reconstruction was barely dry, and somebody was already building something meant to last.
Two reverends drove that effort — the Reverend Leonard Ilsley, born in 1818 and gone in 1903, and the Reverend William Baton Ball, born in 1840 and gone in 1923. Together, they saw to it that a frame school was built right here on this site. They named it the Abraham Lincoln School.
And the Reverend Ball — he became its first principal. The man helped build the school and then stepped inside it every morning to run it. In 1892, the Lincoln School became part of the Seguin Public School System — no longer a private effort held together by faith and determination alone, but recognized, official, part of the public fabric of the city.
Then in 1925, the name changed. The school that William Baton Ball had helped raise from the ground was renamed Ball High School — his name on the door, his legacy in the walls. It carried that name forward, serving the Black community of Seguin, until 1966, when the Seguin Public School System was integrated and Ball High School ceased to be a separate facility.
Ninety-five years after that first school opened — through faith, through struggle, through one name change and then another — the story folded into a larger one. That's how it goes with the best foundations. They don't disappear.
They just become part of something bigger.
What the marker says
Sponsored by the Second Baptist Church, the first public school for blacks in Seguin opened in 1871. Through the efforts of the Rev. Leonard Ilsley (1818-1903), and the Rev. William Baton Ball (1840-1923), a frame school was built on this site, and named Abraham Lincoln School. Ball was the first principal. In 1892, the Lincoln School became a part of the Seguin Public School System. The name was changed to Ball High School in 1925, and ceased to be separate facility for blacks in 1966 when the Seguin Public School System was integrated. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.