The RCTS Building - 1919

The 1919 RCTS Building with the entire student body, teachers, and principal (extreme right) in front. The year the photo was taken is unknown.

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Manilla L. Marion - Supervisor of Negro Education

Ms. Marion was named to her position by Randolph County Superintendent of Education R. F. Edwards.  She would have supervised the 46 colored teachers working in Randolph County sometime between 1929 and 1933. In 1937 there were 46 colored teachers in Randolph County.

Pay for Black teachers for some reason was higher than that for whites in the early years (before 1900). Afterwards, white men teachers were paid the highest salary, followed by white women, Black men, and then Black women teachers.  This practice continued until the 1940s when pay discrimination was ended.

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The Original RCTS Building

The original RCTS building with the 1942 graduating class in front of the building. Front row (kneeling) Junior Strickland from Bacon Level, Hezakiah Carstarphen (teacher), Samuel McLain from Malone, James T. Marable from Malone; (standing) two unidentified, Texanna Marable (Royston) from Malone, Precious Glenn from Wedowee, Myrtis Wilkes from Wedowee, Thelma Stevens (Minnifield) from Anniston/Roanoke, Emma Kate Hand from Wehadkee, and unidentified. Thelma and Texanna became RCTS teachers. (Photo Courtesy Warren Minnifield Collection)

The building, authorized in 1917, opened in 1920. It burned to the ground in February 1943.

RCTS was one of 12 schools in Randolph County built with the aid of the Rosenwald School Foundation. It was built at a cost of $14,700.00 and was funded by monies raised as follows: Negroes $5,000, Whites $2,000, Public $5,900 and Rosenwald Foundation $1,800.

Rosenwald Schools were built according to strict architectural plans.  Plans were numbered. The lower the number, the smaller and simpler the school. A Type 1 school was a one-teacher school.  A type 7 school was a school that was substantial in size.

Randolph County Training School was built while the school building program was managed by Mrs. Booker T. Washington, wife of the head of Tuskegee Institute. Program control  was later transferred to Nashville, TN after it became too large to be effectively led by Tuskegee. The RCTS school building's architectural plans were drawn up by Black architects at Tuskegee Institute.

Fisk University located in Nashville, Tennessee houses some of the Rosenwald School Foundation documents, including photos, plans, and papers relating to the Rosenwald School building program.

Long live the Mighty Bulldogs!

Principal B.F. Moseley becomes principal (1948)

Principal E.S. Peeples resigned as principal of RCTS in 1948 and moved to Mobile, AL to assume school principal duties in Mobile.

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Old Randolph Goes Up In Flames - 1943

Clarence Jairrells, Ed.D., (Class of 1943), stills recalls the circumstances that surrounded the burning of the school. Indeed, he was in attendance and in the building when the fire started. He described the event in an interview for the RCTS documentary "Behind These Silent Walls." He confirmed that the fire started on the second floor and spread quickly throughout the wood framed building. According to him, students were very concerned about preventing their possessions from being burned, especially their precious band instruments. He recalled throwing an instrument through a window of the burning building before escaping himself, only to be informed that the instrument was not his. Foolishly, he said he returned to the building to get his instrument.[1] Dr. Jairrells is one of RCTS’ most accomplished graduates and was the first of its graduates to earn a doctorate. He left RCTS as a 12th grade student to enter military service and fight in World War II. After his tour of duty, he earned his General Education Degree (GED). He graduated from AlabamaState College (B.A.), Indiana State University (M.A.) and the University of Alabama (Ed.D.). He attributed his academic and professional success to the education he received at RCTS and spoke fondly of the competence of his teachers and the importance of classroom discipline.

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Rebuilding RCTS

The 1919 building was destroyed by fire in February 1943. The new 1949 school building served as the only high school for Blacks in Randolph County Alabama until the late 1950s when another high school for Blacks (Wedowee High School) was built at Wedowee, the county seat. RCTS was closed by order of the the United States Federal District Court for the Middle District of Alabama in 1970, 16 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled separate-but-equal education unconstitutional in Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954.
Below is an artist representation of the new 1949 RCTS Main School Building.

Actual Photo of the 1949 RCTS Main Building is shown below. U.S. Highway 431 (Lafayette Highway) is the road in front of the school building. School resumed in the new building on September 1, 1948.

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RCTS Students attend classes at churches and other sites