Palacios Colored School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. This is the story of Palacios Colored School, over in Matagorda County, and it is a story worth knowing. Founded in the 1920s, it was the first school in the city of Palacios built for African American students.

Think about that for a moment. The first. Not an afterthought, not a luxury, something a community had to fight just to have at all.

In 1931, when a building was razed, the people of that community didn't let those materials go to waste. They used them to raise a new two-room school on Humphrey Street. Two rooms.

That's where you start when the world has decided you don't deserve more. That building was later moved to 8th Street, and it grew, and on October 2, 1939, the new Palacios Colored School opened its doors. The building they put up was something to look at, too.

Cross-gabled floor plan, clapboard siding, three projecting wings, and banks of nine-over-nine double-hung windows letting the light pour in. Between 1940 and 1946, the student body grew from 37 students to 81. Children filling those rooms, learning, showing up every single day in a world that offered them separate and called it equal.

When Palacios Independent School District integrated in 1963, the campus closed. Open for about forty years, Palacios Colored School stood as a symbol of something the marker names plainly: the African American community's struggle against racial inequality, and their dedication to education. Not in spite of everything stacked against them.

Alongside it, every day, for forty years.

What the marker says

Founded in the 1920s, Palacios Colored School was the city's first school for African Americans. In 1931, materials from a razed building were used in a new two-room school on Humphrey Street. This building was moved to 8th Street and later expanded. The new Palacios Colored School opened on October 2, 1939. The cross-gabled floor plan features clapboard siding, three projecting wings and banks of 9-over-9 double-hung windows. Between 1940 and 1946, the student body grew from 37 to 81 students. When Palacios Independent School District integrated in 1963, the campus closed. Open for about 40 years, Palacios Colored School symbolized the African American community's struggle against racial inequality and their dedication to education. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2019