One Brick On the Next

These clay bricks cradled the flame that fueled education for all

One Room Schoolhouse

Late 1800’s, one room African American schoolhouse
Located on the Red Ridge Campus, next to The Great Occaneechi Trading Path
The former land owner's grandmother attended school at the schoolhouse

Part of History Wasn’t Recorded

All that remains of the schoolhouse are the four cornerstones and the brick mound where the chimney stack collapsed.

Back in the 19th century, the chimney of the schoolhouse in a sense cradled a place of education, but since then, like the structure of the chimney, the history of the education it once supported, has fallen apart.

The fireplace ultimately provided a source of warmth, as the children who went to the schoolhouse had to help their parents with the planting and the harvesting in the spring and fall months, and the majority of school attendance happened in the winter, the fireplace was physically essential to their education, as well as metaphorically.

The site is now so grown over, that it’s practically unrecognizable as having even been man made - only those who know what to look for would actually know what the implications behind what appear on the surface to be a few large stones and a pile of smaller stones.

There is a part of history here that has gone unrecorded in written word, and what remaining physical evidence there is can only be recognized by someone who understands what has been lost.

While there is a vague record saying that an African American schoolhouse did exist somewhere in the area, it is only by local oral history, passed down through generations, that we know that this was indeed an African American schoolhouse.

Cedarock Park Schoolhouse

At Cedarock Park - nearby the Red Ridge campus - there is another African American schoolhouse of the exact same dimensions, and it is quite possible that this is what the schoolhouse on campus looked like when it was still standing.

At one point, many such African American schoolhouses existed in our county, but timing, location, and pure luck could only preserve the fortunate few, and unfortunately, our schoolhouse wasn't among the handfull left standing.

Oppression & Public Awareness

This represents something with much larger implications than the physical degradation of a building. Public awareness of past oppression, and the ways in which it played out and was then forgotten, are crucial in moving forward into a better world, as African American schools forged the continuation of freedom after emancipation from oppression through education.

However, oppression can be very subtle in the ways in which it spins its web. The very act of not recording something like the schoolhouse can all but erase it from history, and when it is not remembered, then it's as if it never happened.

The fact that there is still something left of this schoolhouse, and that you now know it exists and that it both physically and metaphorically forged education for all is a start toward rebuilding a history that had been all but lost, and ensuring that the same does not happen to future generations.