Pine Street: The Forgotten School

By Shawn Zimmerman

This webpage is dedicated to uncovering the history of the Pine Street School in Conway, Arkansas. Before racial integration was enforced, the school on Pine Street was one of the few colored schools operating in Faulkner County. Although much of the site has been demolished for residential development, there are still a few buildings present today which serve as a landmark.

The school on Pine Street opened approximately in 1887. Until 1895, there were no written records of the school's existence even though it had been educating black children in Conway for over five years. This school received little financial aid from the Conway community, and it didn't even have an official school site until April 11, 1910. Black teachers were hard to find, so for many years there was only one teacher in addition to the principal who taught classes as well. The community would not grant this small public school funds until the 1930's, when they realized that the black students attending Pine Street could be great assets to the athletic programs of Conway. This little school flourished for a short time until the crisis at Little Rock Central High School occurred.

The school on Pine Street is a perfect example of how most colored schools faced the problems of public funding and integration. It lets us see the ineffectiveness of the Reconstruction Government after the Civil War, and how Supreme Court cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Topeka Board of Education aided black education in Arkansas. It also lets us see how the crisis at Little Rock Central High School affected other small town school districts.

• Description and Pictures of the Pine Street School
• Transcripts of audio recorded interviews from former Pine Street students and teachers
• Basic History of the Pine Street School
• The Reconstruction Government and its involvement with Pine Street
• Supreme Court cases related to racial integration
• The Little Rock Nine's effects on the Pine Street School
• Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its effects on the Pine Street School
• Bibliography
• About the Author

Other related Arkansas Memory Project Links:

• Desegregation of Little Rock High School
• Desegregation of Greene County Public Schools

zimmerms@ASMS1x.dsc.k12.ar.us

Acknowledgements

I would just like to thank Dr. Thompson, Dr. Nutter, Mr. Mike Willbanks, Mr. Shane Willbanks, and everyone at the Faulkner County Historical Society for all of their help. Without these people, I would not have been able to gather the information needed to create this webpage. They were very supportive of my endeavor, and they worked in any way they could to aid me.