Pike Road High School is a public school in Pike Road, Alabama, United States, a part of Pike Road Schools. [1] The school site was home to the People's Village School, later renamed Georgia Washington Middle School, until it was acquired by the school system of Pike Road.
The school was formerly in the Mount Meigs community. [2]
The school was founded in 1893 by Georgia Washington (1851-1952), a woman who was born a slave in Virginia; she was sold along with her mother, away from her father. [3] After emancipation she graduated from Hampton University (1882), an HBCU in Virginia where she taught for a while before moving to Mount Meigs, Alabama, where she started a small school, [4] called the People's Village School. At the time, Mount Meigs was a rural area with a significant African-American population, [5] and the school's first building was a small cabin, 12 by 13 feet, where Washington had four boys as students. [3] Washington is buried on the school grounds. [5]
By 1916 enrollment had reached 225. Washington retired in 1936, and after her death in 1952 the school was renamed for her. [3] In 1943 the school was deeded to Montgomery Public Schools, [5] and after a fire destroyed the Mount Meigs Colored Institute in 1948 (then known as Montgomery County Training School), that institute was incorporated into it. [6] It became a junior high school in 1970, and a middle school in 2012. By 2017 enrollment was 600. [3] In 2018, controversy arose because the Montgomery school system, headed by an interim superintendent while under state oversight, announced the sale of the school to the Pike Road Municipal school system; a lawsuit to stop the sale was filed by the Alabama Education Association on behalf of three teachers and parents. The sale would mandate that the school keep its name and that her grave be maintained. [5] The Alabama Supreme Court allowed the sale. [7]
Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for Continental Army Major General Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. The population was 200,603 at the 2020 census. It is now the third most populous city in the state, after Huntsville and Birmingham, and is the 128th most populous in the United States. The Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area's population in 2022 was 385,460; it is the fourth largest in the state and 142nd among United States metropolitan areas.
Montgomery County is located in the State of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, its population was 228,954, making it the seventh-most populous county in Alabama. Its county seat is Montgomery, the state capital. Montgomery County is included in the Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Wetumpka is a city in and the county seat of Elmore County, Alabama, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 7,220. In the early 21st century Elmore County became one of the fastest-growing counties in the state. The city is considered part of the Montgomery Metropolitan Area.
Pike Road is a town in Montgomery County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,439, up from 5,406 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Montgomery metropolitan area.
Montgomery Cunningham Meigs was a career United States Army officer and military and civil engineer, who served as Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army during and after the American Civil War. Although a Southerner from Georgia, Meigs strongly opposed secession and supported the Union. His record as Quartermaster General was regarded as outstanding, both in effectiveness and in ethical probity, and Secretary of State William H. Seward viewed Meigs' leadership and contributions as key factors in the Union victory in the war.
Mount Meigs is an unincorporated community in Montgomery County in the state of Alabama. The Mount Meigs Campus, a juvenile correctional facility and the headquarters of the Alabama Department of Youth Services, is in Mount Meigs. Mount Meigs is located at 32°21′46″N86°6′7″W.
Gunter Annex is a United States Air Force installation located in the North-northeast suburbs of Montgomery, Alabama. The base is named after former Montgomery mayor William Adams Gunter. Until 1992 it was known as Gunter Air Force Base or Gunter Air Force Station. It has been a military training base since its opening in 1940.
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.
Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956), was a case heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on Montgomery and Alabama state bus segregation laws. The panel consisted of Middle District of Alabama Judge Frank Minis Johnson, Northern District of Alabama Judge Seybourn Harris Lynne, and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Rives. The main plaintiffs in the case were Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith. Jeanetta Reese had originally been a plaintiff in the case, but intimidation by segregationists caused her to withdraw in February. She falsely claimed she had not agreed to the lawsuit, which led to an unsuccessful attempt to disbar Fred Gray for supposedly improperly representing her.
U.S. Route 80 (US 80) is a major U.S. Highway in the American state of Alabama. The Alabama Department of Transportation internally designates the majority of US 80 throughout the state as State Route 8 (SR 8), save for parts of the route throughout Selma and near the Mississippi border. Serving as the main east to west highway through Alabama's Black Belt region, US 80 became well known as the main route for the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches; it was the route along which the Civil Rights demonstrators walked, from Selma to Alabama, and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma was the site of Bloody Sunday. The highway was also once a major transcontinental highway reaching from Tybee Island, Georgia, to San Diego, California, but has since been truncated to Dallas, Texas because it was largely replaced by the Interstate Highway System.
Interstate 85 (I-85) is a part of the Interstate Highway System that runs from Montgomery, Alabama, to Petersburg, Virginia. In Alabama, the Interstate Highway runs 80 miles (130 km) from I-65 in Montgomery northeast to the Georgia state line near Valley. Although it is nominally north–south as it carries an odd number, I-85 travels east–west through the state. It is the primary highway between Montgomery and Atlanta. The Interstate also connects Montgomery with Tuskegee, Auburn, Opelika, and, indirectly, Phenix City and Columbus, Georgia.
Montgomery Public Schools is a school district headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. The current Superintendent of Montgomery Public Schools is Melvin Brown. The district serves the city of Montgomery and surrounding Montgomery County. It is the third largest district in Alabama, with 31,743 students enrolled. The entire district is accredited by AdvancED and also has two International Baccalaureate programs: Macmillan International Academy (Elementary) and Johnnie Carr Middle School.
George Howe (1886–1955) was an American architect and educator, and an early convert to the International style. His personal residence, High Hollow (1914-1917), established the standard for house design in the Philadelphia region through the early 20th century. His partnership with William Lescaze yielded the design of Philadelphia's PSFS Building (1930–32), considered the first International style skyscraper built in the United States.
The Mount Meigs Campus is a juvenile corrections facility of the Alabama Department of Youth Services located in the Mount Meigs community, and in the city of Montgomery, Alabama; the campus serves as the agency's administrative headquarters. The 780-acre (320 ha) campus, which can house 264 boys, is next to Interstate 85 North and about 15 miles (24 km) east of Downtown Montgomery. Since 2015, the separate J. Walter Wood Treatment facility for 24 girls is also located in the Mount Meigs Campus.
The Antioch Baptist Church in Mount Meigs, Alabama was founded in 1818 and is the first Baptist church in the county. Originally a rural white church, from 1849 until the Civil War it was a biracial church; since then, the church has moved and has become an African-American church. The old church site now has only a graveyard, the Antioch Cemetery.
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.
Cornelia Bowen (1865-1934) was an African American teacher and school founder from Alabama. She was in the first graduating class of the Tuskegee Institute and went on to found the Mount Meigs Colored Institute as well as the Mt. Meigs Negro Boys' Reformatory. Based on the principles of the Tuskegee Institute, where she was trained, Bowen created industrial schools to teach students to thrive from their own industry. She was a member of both the state and national Colored Women's Federated Clubs and served as an officer of both organizations. She also was elected as the first woman president of the Alabama Negro Teacher's Association.
The Mount Meigs Colored Institute was a reform school founded by Cornelia Bowen for African-Americans in Mount Meigs, Alabama, an unincorporated community in Montgomery County, Alabama.
Pike Road Schools is a school district headquartered in unincorporated Montgomery County, Alabama. It serves the community of Pike Road.