Group fights to save schoolGullah Heritage wants district to rethink Jennie Moore By Diette Courrégé (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Friday, February 15, 2008
Gullah Heritage wants district to rethink Jennie Moore 
Tommy Townsend Jennie Moore Elementary was built in 1954. Photo was taken May 16, 1955. 
Grace Beahm Members of the community group Gullah Heritage Committee posted signs on U.S. Highway 17 to build public support for preserving Jennie Moore Elementary School. 
The Post and Courier A group of Mount Pleasant residents is trying to rally public support behind an idea to spare the existing Jennie Moore Elementary School building. The group, Gullah Heritage Preservation, has put up two signs in Mount Pleasant that read "Help Save Jennie Moore Elementary School for Our Community" and is circulating a petition. The Charleston County School District plans to rebuild Jennie Moore on its existing site and move Laing Middle to that site, too. Officials hope to eventually build a third school for kindergarten through second-grade students in the same area, creating a three-school community like the one in Park West. The school board has set aside money in the building program to design the future buildings for Jennie Moore and Laing. Gullah Heritage Preservation doesn't want to see Jennie Moore or Laing Middle torn down because both schools have historical significance to the black community, said Jeannette Lee, a member of the preservation group and resident of the Seven Mile community. It's especially important because most things associated with black history are destroyed, said George Freeman, a member of the group. Jennie Moore was a school for blacks, and Freeman said the intent was not educate them but to keep them isolated. He compared the destruction of Jennie Moore to the postwar destruction of detention centers built for Japanese-Americans in World War II. Today, some people don't know Japanese-Americans were detained in camps because they no longer exist, he said. If Jennie Moore is demolished, the history of segregated schools also will be destroyed. He called Laing and Jennie Moore the "only remaining educational structures still standing to preserve the educational history of African Americans in Mount Pleasant." Jennie Moore is the group's focus because a greater possibility exists to save it than Laing, he said. They want Jennie Moore to become a community center that would be used by area residents and children after school. The Gullah preservation group was formed as a spin-off of the U.S. Highway 17 Task Force and includes representatives from the Four Mile, Phillips, Seven Mile, Six Mile and Snowden communities. They are dedicated to preserving the history and culture of those neighborhoods. The signs were erected as a means of drawing attention to their cause, Lee said. They already have talked to the county School Board and County Council in the past year. Bill Lewis is executive director of the school district's building program. The preservation group has been invited to participate in the planning process for the new schools to ensure the Gullah heritage is incorporated in the new campus, but the school district isn't in the position to give a building to them because the Jennie Moore land is needed for new schools, he said. The school district has been able to buy the land adjacent to Jennie Moore, which is an ideal spot for the new Laing and creates a similar synergy to the schools in Park West, Lewis said. Jennie Moore will be expanded from 500 to 800 students, and the cost to renovate, expand and ensure that it meets current codes would cost almost the same as a new building, he said. Laing Middle also will be expanded, and its current site is too small to hold a new school with the desired capacity. The district plans to sell the Laing site and use the proceeds to help fund its new building. All schools are built to be community centers, Lewis said. Reach Diette Courrégé at 937-5546 or dcourrege@ postandcourier.com. |
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Comments
This article has 11 comment(s)
Posted by moonpie on February 15, 2008 at 6:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well if you like the Gullah so much lets stroll back to that time? Please pick another reason will you?!
Posted by karmann on February 15, 2008 at 6:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
How can this school be a historic landmark? How come the community didn't rally to stop the destruction of the old Chicora High School? Didn't it mean something to that community? Consistency!
Posted by MasterandCommander on February 15, 2008 at 7:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Every other community in the state is estatic when they are told they are getting a new school. I went to the same HS and my parents. Yeah it is sad that it closed, but we cannot save every building in town. Time marches on. It would different if the building was build 200 years ago. If this group wants the schools so bad put your money where your mouth is. I am sure that both schools combined would set them back 5-10 million at least due to their size and location. I live beside Jennie Moore and I have never heard of this group until now.
Posted by charlestonnative1963 on February 15, 2008 at 7:28 a.m. (Suggest removal)
IF they want that building so badly let them move it. Mount Pleasant needs decent school buildings...a school built in the 1900's is NOT historic. Build NEW schools. Theold ones look bad and are probably not safe or green.
Posted by RTC on February 15, 2008 at 8:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
No one is ever happy with what they have or sometimes with what they get.
I, also, have never heard of this group. If they have been around for any length of time, then they must just now be getting vocal.
Mt. Pleasant Academy and Moultrie Middle are getting new schools.
Do people realize how lucky they are to be getting new schools, when other areas have schools that are falling apart? Stop complaining, and be grateful that you have the opportunity to have a safe, modern school.
Posted by ColdBeer on February 15, 2008 at 11:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Why would they want to tear this school down? All of the schools built during that time were safe and are still up to date by modern standards. I'm sure you'd never find lead paint or asbestos in this old building. They probably have a GREAT set up for teaching with modern tools such as computers. Yes, that was sarcasm). Give me a break. If you tear it down, you're accused of destroying black history. If you don't build a new school, you're accused of not supporting the kids in this area in ths ame way that you support kids in other areas.
Posted by RTC on February 15, 2008 at 11:17 a.m. (Suggest removal)
On another note...no one said a word when desegregation happened, and all black Laing High School was eventually torn down after it sat for years. I don't know the age of that school, but it was still a significant part of the past.
The history lives on in people's hearts and in books and archives.
We can't keep everything from the past alive, as progress marches on.
Posted by Todd_the_Tiger on February 15, 2008 at 11:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)
First of all, Jennie Moore is in terrible shape. It also represents an era of poorly funded school buildings. It is a dated, inefficient design. In no way is this historic architecture. So please, save the preservation argument for a building that can be retrofitted for adaptaive reuse.
Secondly, this is long-awaited progress. We will have a great 3-School Campus when it's all said and done. I cannot imagine a better benefit for the local children.
Posted by jera on February 15, 2008 at 8:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Consistency? There isn't a single commenter here who understands what that truly means, so let me explain: if they tear down that school, they might as well throw the Hunley in a landfill. *Just* because something has no historical value to you doesn't mean it has no historical value for others.
Posted by RTC on February 15, 2008 at 8:48 p.m. (Suggest removal)
jera, your analogy makes no sense.
Posted by grainofsalt on February 16, 2008 at 4:14 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Jera - no offense, but using your logic, we'd never tear anything down... ever.
I'm sure the old Family Dollar store on Coleman means something to someone - so we better start campaigning against the Beach Company's plans to tear it down and redevelop that part of Coleman.
The old Cooper River Bridges meant a lot to many of us, including me. I guess we should have demanded that they be kept until they fell down - just because they had historical significance to some of us.
The old Mount Pleasant Academy had historical significance to many in the Old Village. I can't imagine why no-one tried to stop them from tearing it down in favor of the modern, technologically-advanced building they're starting on.
Get my point? Fact is, blocky old Jennie Moore needs to be replaced - and we should be grateful that we're getting all these new school buildings instead of being forced to pour good money after bad to effect more and more temporary repairs.