African American Library at the Gregory School facts for kids
Quick facts for kids African American Library at the Gregory School |
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| African American Library at the Gregory School | |
| Country | USA |
| Location | Houston, Texas |
| Coordinates | 29°45′15″N 95°22′48″W / 29.754254454462064°N 95.38009117748142°W |
The African American Library at the Gregory School is a special part of the Houston Public Library system. It's located in an area of Houston called the Fourth Ward, Houston. This library is super important because it helps keep the history of African Americans in Houston alive. It was the first library in the city to focus only on African-American history and culture.
Inside, you'll find cool galleries, a room to record oral histories (people telling their stories), and quiet reading areas. It cost about $11 million to turn the old school building into this library. The money came from federal grants and funds from the Houston Public Library and the City of Houston. The building used to be the Edgar M. Gregory School, which was a school for kids from kindergarten to eighth grade.
History
After the U.S. Civil War, many formerly enslaved people settled in an area of Houston called Freedmen's Town. The Freedmen's Bureau, an organization that helped these new communities, opened schools there. By 1870, the Texas Legislature allowed public schools to be created for Freedmen's Town.
In 1872, most students and teachers from the closing Freedmen's Bureau schools moved to the state-run Gregory Institute. This school was named after Edgar M. Gregory, who was an officer in the Union army during the U.S. Civil War. He also helped lead the Freedmen's Bureau in Texas.
The Gregory Institute, which opened in 1872, was the very first school for freed people in Houston. Some even say it might have been the first in all of Texas! By 1876, the school became part of the Houston public school system. Because African Americans had donated the land for the school, it had a special connection to the Black community in the neighborhood.
Over time, the Gregory School was in three different buildings. The first two were a brick building and a two-story wooden one. The wooden building was destroyed by a fire. This led to the construction of the third building, the Edgar M. Gregory School. This new building opened in 1926. It was a large, white brick building, about 20,000 square feet in size.
Around the 1920s, the school was next to a lake, and the area often flooded. Students and staff sometimes had to walk through watery hallways. These wet conditions could lead to illnesses. A newspaper story from the Houston Informer even said that "More teachers have died out of Gregory School than any public school in Houston."
Before it closed, the Gregory School taught students from kindergarten to eighth grade. It was one of two schools that served children living in the Allen Parkway Village public housing complex. In the 1979–1980 school year, the school had 882 elementary students. Most of them were Black (62.7%), followed by Hispanic (20.9%), Asian (15.5%), and a small number of white students (0.9%).
In 1980, the Gregory School closed its doors. Its students then went to what was Abraham Lincoln Junior High School, which is now called the Gregory-Lincoln Education Center. The old Gregory School building was empty from 1980 until it was decided to turn it into a library. While it was empty, it had broken windows, a leaky roof, and pigeons living inside.
Eventually, the building was chosen to become a research library. Renovations to the Gregory School started in 2008. In February 2009, the people working on the library asked local residents for old items and memories to use in exhibits. The library was planned to open on November 14, 2009. The renovations took about a year and a half.
During the renovation, the school's windows were carefully removed, fixed, and put back. The bricks on three sides of the building were cleaned and protected. The north side received new bricks that matched the old ones. The goal was to make the library look just like the original school building from 1926. The library officially opened by December 2009.
The library also made some of the historical items it received available online. This way, people could access the information both in person and from their computers. In November 2010, a group called the Gregory Library Watch raised concerns. They said the library was not keeping certain historical documents, especially those about efforts to prevent the closing of Allen Parkway Village. A member of the group, Lenwood Johnson, said the library refused to archive these documents.
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