DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Negro Fine Arts School in Williamson County. Now settle in, because this one's got layers. It starts with a single professor, three students, and an idea that turned out to be bigger than anyone in Georgetown, Texas might have guessed in the fall of 1946.
Twenty years before the Georgetown Public School District would integrate — twenty years — Southwestern University Professor Iola Bowden Chambers and her three students decided they weren't going to wait for the world to catch up. They were going to start teaching piano lessons to children in the African American community. Just like that.
A music professor with a new teaching theory and the nerve to try it. Now, she didn't do it alone. The Georgetown School Board came on board.
The First Methodist Church of Georgetown opened its doors. The Christian Student Association of Southwestern University threw in its support. And together, those three pillars funded and championed something they called the Negro Fine Arts School.
The First Methodist Church housed the school, and through those doors came over two hundred students. Over two hundred. What started as piano lessons grew.
Voice lessons. Art lessons. And at the end of every year — every single year — a recital.
The school also built a scholarship program, and here's where you feel the weight of that commitment: that assistance followed a recipient for every year they were enrolled in college. Not a one-time gift. Every year.
The school produced distinguished alumni who went on to earn degrees in music and teach young aspiring musicians of their own. So the thing multiplied, the way good things do when somebody plants them with enough care. But the marker wants you to know this wasn't only about music.
The Negro Fine Arts School gave its students musical avenues and self-esteem. And it gave other community members something too — the chance to sit alongside African Americans, to interact, and to reckon honestly with the injustice of racial segregation. Music, it turns out, has a way of making that reckoning a little harder to avoid.
The peaceful school integration that would begin in Georgetown in 1965 didn't come from nowhere. This school helped pave the way. One professor.
Three students. A fall semester in 1946. And two hundred children who got to hear themselves play.
What the marker says
Twenty years before the integration of the Georgetown Public School District, a progressive music professor and her three students embarked on a program to explore a new musical teaching theory and give African American children a chance to learn music. In the fall of 1946, Southwestern University Professor Iola Bowden Chambers and her students began teaching piano lessons to children in the African American community. Through the cooperation of the Georgetown School Board, the First Methodist Church of Georgetown and the Christian Student Association of Southwestern University, the Negro Fine Arts School was funded and championed. During the school's existence, the First Methodist Church, which housed the school, welcomed over 200 students through its doors who participated in the program. The school expanded to provide voice and art lessons, produced a recital at the end of every year, and provided scholarships to its students. The scholarship program provided assistance for every year the recipient was enrolled in college. The school also produced several distinguished alumni who pursued degrees in music and taught other young aspiring musicians. The Negro Fine Arts School not only provided musical avenues and self esteem for its students, but opportunities for other community members to interact with African Americans and to understand the injustice of racial segregation. The Negro Fine Arts School introduced children to the universal language of music and helped pave the way for peaceful school integration that would begin in 1965. (2009)