Briarcrest Christian School | |
---|---|
Address | |
76 S Houston Levee Rd 38028 | |
Coordinates | 35°7′15″N89°43′54″W / 35.12083°N 89.73167°W |
Information | |
School type | Private, coeducational |
Motto | With Men, This Is Impossible; But With God, All Things Are Possible. Matthew 19:26 |
Religious affiliation(s) | Non-denominational Christian |
Established | 1973 |
Founder | W. Wayne Allen |
Principal | Tyler Salyer (high school) Dr. Clayton Williams (middle school) Kimberly Avant (elementary school) |
Grades | K2–12 |
Enrollment | 1,750 |
Color(s) | Green and Gold |
Fight song | When the Saints Go Marching In |
Mascot | St. Bernard dog "BC" |
Nickname | Saints |
Rivals | Upper School: Christian Brothers High School (Boys) Lower School: St. Dominic School (Boys) Presbyterian Day School (Boys) Both: Hutchison School (Girls), St. Agnes Academy (Girls), Memphis University School (Boys), St. Mary's Episcopal School (Girls) |
Feeder schools | Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal School, Woodland Presbyterian School |
Feeder to | Itself |
Website | www |
Briarcrest Christian School (BCS) is a private, coeducational, Christian school in Eads, an unincorporated area of Shelby County, Tennessee. The school was founded as a segregation academy during the racial integration of public schools in Memphis, Tennessee. Today, it serves students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The school also offers "early school" for ages 2-4.
In 1970, the leaders and members of East Park Baptist Church began to plan a collection of segregation academies — schools that would allow white parents to avoid having their children in desegregated public schools — in anticipation of the court-ordered racial integration of Memphis City Schools. That order arrived in 1972, and on March 15, 1973, the church incorporated the Briarcrest Baptist School System. [1] [2] [3] Briarcrest's initial faculty consisted of teachers who left public schools after desegregation. Principal Joseph A. Clayton said he and others wanted to be "back among their own" with "less fear, less culture shock" and more "cultural homogeneity". [4] : 54 As part of the effort, the administration screened prospective teachers to ensure that all staff members believed in creationism and that no teacher would teach the theory of evolution. [4] : 63
In September 1973, the school system launched with 2,400 pupils attending kindergarten through eighth-grade classes at 11 Southern Baptist churches throughout the Memphis area. [5] Tuition and fees were $650 per student (about $4,461 today [6] ), with $100 discounts for siblings. [5] Few, if any, were black, despite a declared policy of nondiscrimination — a requirement for the school's tax-exempt status — and reported efforts by Briarcrest officials to attract African-American students. A 1976 book published by Christian Literature Crusade said those efforts included asking 10 African-American pastors in Memphis for recruiting help and advertising in the Tri-State Defender , a local minority newspaper. [7] : 42–43 [2] W. Wayne Allen, the pastor of East Park Baptist Church and head of the school system, said the black community pressured its families not to attend Briarcrest schools. "A black pastor friend of mine told me, 'Brother Allen, if I had one of your satellite schools in my church I'd be ostracized as an Uncle Tom'", Mr. Allen told the New York Times in August 1973. "I told him, 'It's too bad you folks are so segregationist.'" [5]
In the fall of 1974, Briarcrest narrowly won an auction for a plot of land in East Memphis, beating out a Jewish group that sought to build a synagogue. School officials, who wanted the land for their high school campus, described the victory as a divine intervention in favor of Christianity over Judaism. [4] : 35 [7] : 30–31
Grades 9–12 were added in 1975. That year, all of the high school's 1,432 students and 69 faculty and staff members were white, [8] despite the ostensibly open admissions policy. [4] : 33–36
In its early years, the Briarcrest system continued to hold elementary-grade classes in various churches, paying minimal rent so it could concentrate capital spending on its high school campus. [4] : 36 Since the Briarcrest system was affiliated with a large church, it continued to attract students after other Memphis-area segregation academies shut down. [9]
In 1979, six years after Briarcrest began operation, about 2,000 students attended classes in the churches, and another 1,800 students attended the high school. [1] Allen, by now the chairman of the school board, proclaimed it "the largest private school in the world." [1] [10] Tuition in the lower grades was still $650; for high schoolers it was $1,100. [1] A recent capital fundraising drive had netted about $400,000 to build a football stadium, and the school had recently created a development office to routinize solicitations for more funds. [1]
None of its 3,800 students were black; indeed, only two black students had ever enrolled in Briarcrest's regular classes, and just 46 more in its summer programs, Allen said. [1] [11] Memphis NAACP chair Maxine Smith described the school as a "bastion of white segregation in a city with a 40% black population". [12] Allen said the school's attempts at outreach were foiled by the black community, whose children were "pressured into staying away, feeling they'd be Uncle Toms if they came." [3]
In February 1979, Allen was summoned to Washington, D.C., to testify at a hearing of the oversight subcommittee of the House Committee on Ways and Means. Rep. Harold Ford Sr., D-Tennessee, questioned Allen about why no black students attended Briarcrest. Allen said that "every possible effort has been made to encourage and enroll black students ... Some of the black leadership in our city says, 'Stay away; it is a racial school.' And it is not." Ford, the first black person to represent Tennessee in Congress, responded that he had never heard black leaders say that. [1]
In 1984, a group of black parents sued Allen in his official capacity, alleging that the school practiced discriminatory policies that require the revocation of its federal tax-exempt status. The case, Allen v. Wright , was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, which held that the parents did not have standing to challenge the IRS ruling on the school's tax status. [13] Afterward, Allen said he was glad the tax code could not be "used as a weapon" by those who disagreed with the school's "policies or politics". [14]
By 1988, the school's enrollment had dwindled to 1,473 students and the school was in a precarious financial situation. School leaders feared the school would not have funds to reopen after the 1988–89 Christmas break, but a combination of teacher layoffs, staff pay cuts, and emergency fundraising allowed the school to continue classes. [15] In 1989, the school split from the founding church and re-chartered as an independent school under the name Briarcrest Christian School.
The school and its history of racial segregation were portrayed in the 2009 film The Blind Side , though it was called "Wingate Christian School". [16] [17] Briarcrest officials said they did not permit the use of the school's real name because they felt that the script took excessive artistic license. [18]
By 2010, the school had grown to 1,600 students and spent $43 million to build its campus. [19]
In 2012, the school sold its Memphis campus to a church that had been a tenant there, though it continued to "lease space in the building for 200 students ranging from 2-year-olds to fifth graders", the Memphis Business Journal reported. [20]
In 2021, the school attracted controversy by inviting parents to a seminar on how to "respond biblically" to children coming out or embracing an alternative gender identity. [21] Shelby County commissioner Tami Sawyer said the school's anti-LGBT rhetoric ("hateful drivel") should be viewed in light of the school's history of racial segregation. [22] [23] Several alumni said that the school's homophobic teachings led them to consider suicide during their attendance. [24] [25]
Briarcrest is a non-denominational Christian school. All students attend weekly chapel services, study the Bible, and are encouraged to have what evangelical Christians describe as "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ". The school professes to teach Christian values and biblical morals; citing biblical verses, it forbids students to make statements in support of abortion, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, same-sex attraction, and alternate gender identity. [26]
Briarcrest offers honors, advanced placement, and dual enrollment classes. Fine arts programs begin in preschool and continue through grade 12 in visual arts, choral music, instrumental music, general music, and theater arts.
The school has dual accreditation from the Southern Association of Independent Schools and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Briarcrest is also a member of the Association of Christian Schools International, Tennessee Association of Independent Schools, Memphis Association of Independent Schools, and the College Board.
Briarcrest offers athletic programs including football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, cross country, golf, bowling, swimming, trap shooting, softball, lacrosse, soccer, volleyball, track, tennis, and cheerleading. The school participates in Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA) Division II West AA for large schools, competing with both private and public schools in the region. Since 1998, Briarcrest has won nine state championships. Two of the football titles and four in girls' basketball were won by teams coached by Hugh Freeze, who left in 2004 and went on to become head football coach at the University of Mississippi.
In 2017, Freeze resigned abruptly from Ole Miss after he was found to have made more than a dozen calls to escort services on a university cellphone. [27] [28] Soon thereafter, some female former Briarcrest students alleged that Freeze had engaged in inappropriate conduct with them at the school. [27] [29] A Briarcrest spokeswoman said, "We are totally unaware of any allegations against Coach Freeze regarding any kind of inappropriate personal conduct while he was here at Briarcrest.” [30]
Desegregation busing was an attempt to diversify the racial make-up of schools in the United States by sending students to school districts other than their own. While the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, many American schools continued to remain largely racially homogeneous. In an effort to address the ongoing de facto segregation in schools, the 1971 Supreme Court decision, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, ruled that the federal courts could use busing as a further integration tool to achieve racial balance.
Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984), was a United States Supreme Court case that determined that citizens do not have standing to sue a federal government agency based on the influence that the agency's determinations might have on third parties.
Segregation academies are private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend desegregated public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional, and 1976, when the court ruled similarly about private schools.
Trinity Christian Academy (TCA) is a private, conservative non-denominational Christian school in Addison, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. TCA was established in 1970 and, as of 2020, enrolls about 1300 students.
Trinity Presbyterian School is a Christian day school serving grades K3-12th located in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1970
Franklin Road Academy (FRA) is a private co-educational Christian school for students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 located in Oak Hill, Tennessee. The school was founded in 1971 and originally affiliated with the First Christian Church before it became a separate incorporated organization in 1982. FRA has been described as a segregation academy, like other schools established after a court ordered Nashville public schools to expand desegregation busing.
North Florida Christian School (NFCS) is a private Christian school in Tallahassee, Florida, originally founded as a segregation academy. The school is administered by North Florida Baptist Church, formerly known as Temple Baptist Church.
Michael Jerome Oher is an American former football tackle who played in the National Football League (NFL) for eight seasons. He played college football at the University of Mississippi, where he earned unanimous All-American honors as a senior, and was selected by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the 2009 NFL draft. He spent his first five seasons with the Ravens and was a member of the team that won Super Bowl XLVII. He later played one season for the Tennessee Titans and his final two for the Carolina Panthers.
Dade Christian School is a private Christian school that enrolls kindergarten through 12th grade students in Miami, Florida.
Parkview Baptist School (PBS) is a private K-12 Christian school located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States.
Northpoint Christian School (NCS) is a private Christian school located in Southaven, Mississippi, that has been described as a white flight school. The school was founded in 1973 by a group of ten White Southern Baptist churches in the Whitehaven section of Memphis, Tennessee, at a time when public schools were integrating Black and White students. Programs for kindergarten through Grade 8 began in 1973, and grades 9-12 were added the following year. As of 2014, the school was the third-largest private school in Greater Memphis.
Brentwood Academy is a coeducational Christian independent college preparatory school located in Brentwood, Tennessee, for grades 6–12.
First Assembly Christian school (FACS) is a private, college preparatory Christian school located in the Cordova section of Memphis, Tennessee. FACS was founded as First Assembly of God Christian School in 1972 to preserve white-only school in response to a federal court order requiring integrated schools. The school was initially located on Highland Street in Memphis before moving to Walnut Grove in Cordova.
The Indianola Academy is a K-12 private school in Indianola, Mississippi founded as a segregation academy. Indianola Academy comprises an elementary school, a middle school, and a college preparatory high school. Indianola Academy is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit institution. As of 2012 most white teenagers in Indianola attend Indianola Academy instead of the public high schools.
Eads is an unincorporated community in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, named after Civil War engineer James Buchanan Eads. Some parts of Eads have been annexed by the city of Memphis. Some of its area is currently still unincorporated. Eads is located north of Collierville, west of Somerville, and east of Memphis and Bartlett. The Eads zip code (38028) stretches into both Shelby County and Fayette County, including parts of Hickory Withe and Fisherville. Major roads in the community include Winfield Dunn Parkway, U.S. Route 64, Collierville-Arlington Road/Airline Road, and Seward Road.
Danny Hugh Freeze Jr. is an American college football coach. He is the head football coach for Auburn University, a position he has held since 2023. A successful high school football coach at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, Tennessee, Freeze coached Michael Oher and Greg Hardy. He subsequently was the head football coach at Lambuth University from 2008 to 2009, Arkansas State University in 2011, the University of Mississippi from 2012 to 2016, and Liberty University from 2018 to 2022.
Community Christian School (CCS) is a PreK–12 private, college preparatory Christian school in Bradenton, Florida, United States that was established in 1968 by Community Baptist Church.
Macon Road Baptist School was a private Baptist Christian school with several locations in the Memphis, Tennessee area.
African Americans are the second largest census "race" category in the state of Tennessee after whites, making up 17% of the state's population in 2010. African Americans arrived in the region prior to statehood. They lived both as slaves and as free citizens with restricted rights up to the Civil War.
This is a timeline of the civil rights movement in the United States, a nonviolent mid-20th century freedom movement to gain legal equality and the enforcement of constitutional rights for people of color. The goals of the movement included securing equal protection under the law, ending legally institutionalized racial discrimination, and gaining equal access to public facilities, education reform, fair housing, and the ability to vote.
The term 'segregation academy' in the South has come to mean an institution which is one of 'a system of private schools operated on a racially segregated basis as an alternative available to white students seeking to avoid desegregated public schools.' Coffey v. State Educ. Fin. Comm'n , 296 F. Supp. 1389, 1392 (S.D. Miss. 1969). "The quality of instruction, teachers, and physical plant varies widely among such schools. Some private white schools are well-equipped and boast an excellent staff. For example, the Briarcrest Baptist School System, Inc., in Memphis, Tennessee, offers all the standard academic subjects in addition to religious training. All of Briarcrest's staff are certified by the state, and 20 hold master's degrees. Wall Street Journal, supra note 14, at 1, col. 4. However, many southern private schools are woefully inadequate.
Time Correspondent Jack White has been investigating the 'segregation academies' ... Briarcrest Baptist High School, which opened two years ago after the courts ordered busing in the Memphis schools, has just about everything: a lavish $6.5 million building with earphones dangling from the ceiling in language labs, an electric kiln for would-be potters and an enthusiastic and well-educated corps of teachers (40% have master's degrees). ... What Briarcrest lacks, however, is blacks. All of its 1,432 students and 69 faculty and staff members are white."Many of the new private schools, like Briarcrest, insist that they have 'open' admissions and are segregated only because no blacks have applied. But they conceded that white hostility to desegregation accounts for much of their growth.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)