In September 1926, Eva Edwards Lovett opened the Lovett School with 20 boys and girls in first through third grades in Midtown Atlanta.[citation needed] By 1936, Lovett had become a day school, with a move to a wooded campus north of the city off West Wesley Road.
In 1960-61, Lovett opened at 4075 Paces Ferry Road—Lovett's current location, with an enrollment of 1,024 students, representing all grades except the 12th. By 1964, both the elementary and high schools were accredited by the Georgia Commission of Accreditation (and each year subsequently), and the upper school was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
In 1992, the school purchased 320 acres of cloud forest, known as Siempre Verde, in Ecuador to set up a research and education center.[2]
The school celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2000-01[3] with events such as a history exhibition and a reunion for former alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the school.
In 2017, the school announced that Meredyth Cole would replace retiring headmaster William S. Peebles IV at the end of the 2017–18 school year.[4]
Integration struggles
In 1963, the Lovett School became the focus of a desegregation controversy when it rejected the applications of three black students. In 1963, Coretta Scott King contacted the school and asked if it had a racially nondiscriminatory admissions policy.[5] When the school responded that it would admit a black student, her son, Martin Luther King III applied. However, there was not a guarantee that any particular student would be admitted.[6] King was rejected. The Episcopal Diocese then distanced itself from the school.[5]
At the center of this long ago debate were the school's ties to the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, which had been established in 1954. The national Episcopal Church had issued directives to its member dioceses to integrate their institutions; the Lovett School's refusal to do so placed the bishop of Atlanta, the Rt. Rev. Randolph Claiborne Jr., in a difficult situation.[7] After a number of pickets at the school organized by the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, the diocese and school attempted to resolve the situation by severing ties with each other. In later years, the school reportedly revised its admission policy with regards to race.
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