Remembering Georgetown's African-American School, Marshall-Carver
The Marshall-Carver School was a crucial educational and social hub for African Americans who weren’t permitted to attend schools in GISD due to strict Jim Crow segregation laws.
The revelation that Georgetown used to have an all-Black school might come as a surprise to people new to the town, especially Southwestern students, but there was one, named Marshall-Carver School. The Marshall-Carver School educated African Americans who weren’t permitted to attend schools in GISD due to strict Jim Crow segregation laws.
Within this town that seems to love history, this is a history that is not as widely known as it should be. For years, the Georgetown Cultural Citizen Memorial Association (GCCMA) has been working to change that. One of my primary sources of information about Marshall-Carver is a former student of Marshall-Carver, Ms. Paulette Taylor, who today is a central figure in GCCMA and one of the key people keeping the memory of Marshall-Carver alive in Georgetown.
A few years ago, Ms. Taylor and GCCMA created exhibits about the school and the surrounding neighborhoods in a place called the Shotgun House Museum, which is where many of the images and artifacts for this entry are displayed, and where this pin is located. I wrote a separate Placing Memory entry devoted entirely to Ms. Taylor, and I wrote other entries about the desegregation of Georgetown schools, but this entry is about the Marshall-Carver school itself.
The Shotgun House is located on 801 West Street, in the historical “TRG'' area of Georgetown. TRG stands for Track, Ridge, and Grasshopper. The Ridge and Grasshopper Neighborhoods, located north of the current University Avenue/State Highway 29, developed to the west of the Downtown area and along the eastern curve of the San Gabriel River. The Track neighborhood developed southwest of downtown along the rail line and close to the cotton gin and oil mill, which provided employment opportunities for early African-American residents.
African Americans living within the system of Jim Crow within the United States showed resilience by inventing and creating their own way of life and the residents of Georgetown were no different. Despite having limited resources, they made the most of what they had. Today, Ms. Taylor attests to the vibrant businesses, churches, salons, barber shops, and cafes the African-American community had in the TRG–especially the Ridge neighborhood, where she lived. And right in the center of it all was Marshall-Carver School.
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In his history of efforts to desegregate Georgetown schools in the 1960s, Dr. Norman Spellmann, a former professor at Southwestern University, refers to the school as “the colored school,” which is what it was called from the time it was built in the early 20th century, when it was called the George Washington Carver School.
The school initially included African Americans in the 1st through 8th grades, as Georgetown did not then provide education for African Americans beyond that. The school’s principal, Mr. S. C. Marshall, advocated for high school-level courses and created a new program called the “The Georgetown Colored High School.”
In 1923, a new building was constructed due to an increase in enrollment, and that school, which included every African-American student in Georgetown from 1st grade up to 12th grade, was eventually what was called Marshall-Carver School, honoring both George Washington Carver and the former principal, S.C. Marshall.
In an era when the legal standard was for “separate but equal” schools for Whites and African Americans, Marshall-Carver School provided a variety of programs for its students that paralleled the programs for White students in GISD, and some that were specific to Marshall-Carver. The school had its own football team that excelled in games and a cheerleading squad to strengthen the morale of the team. Not only that but the school also had a men's basketball team, baseball team, track team, tennis team, a successful band, and held a “Miss Carver High” naming ceremony during their Homecoming event. The girls were able to participate in certain track events, basketball, and pep-squad. They also held graduation ceremonies, naming their valedictorians, salutatorians, and honor roll students.
Ms. Taylor is proud to recall the awards students at Carver had won. She mentioned UIL awards students had received for their exceptional work in either academics or athletics. Reinforcing this, Marsha Farney’s dissertation about the changes within the Georgetown school system in the twentieth century details how Carver School students presented a series of programs where posters were made and prizes awarded to those making the best posters and writing the best theme in 1954. They also had a Fire Prevention Week ceremony where students made presentations to locate any potential fire hazards on campus.
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In spite of all these great attributes of the Carver School, the institution was never operating at its full potential. No matter how good the students were, the fact that the building lacked better facilities was evident. In an official visit in the 1960s, the Texas Education Agency deemed the school inadequate and substandard.
When I spoke to Ms. Taylor this summer, she attested that the school had one drinking fountain that did not produce cold water, a girl’s bathroom with no heater, a boys bathroom that could be accessed by walking outside and then back into the building, and one fire escape for a school of 154 students. She also recalled how they lacked a satisfactory library in the school. Their library was really just a table at the back of the classroom that held a few hand-me-down books they had received from the White kids in GISD.
Not only did they receive used books but athletes had to wear used jerseys and shoes as well. Ms. Taylor reminisced about a game where one football player had on mismatched shoes while playing football. Due to lack of teachers, students also were subjected to sharing a classroom with another grade and all teachers taught two to three subjects.
Parents within the community such as Harvey Miller took notice of all these drawbacks and tried to do something to resolve the issues faced by students at Marshall-Carver. As I detail in a separate Placing Memory entry, Mr. Miller was a former student of the school. While his two daughters attended the school, he desired a better education for them. After the Brown v Board of Education ruling in 1954 declared the “separate but equal” standard unconstitutional, people like Mr. Miller advocated for a different approach to education that provided African-American students with equal educational opportunities.
Mr. Miller and members of the Committee for Better Schools, which included professors from Southwestern University, businessmen, reverends, and other parents within the community, took legal action against the Georgetown School Board when they wanted to build a new segregated school for African-American students instead of integrating the whole city and giving all students the same opportunities. Harvey Miller even filed a lawsuit in the name of his daughter Crystal against the School Board.
Ultimately, the Georgetown School Board still built the segregated school Harvey Miller and Committee for Better Schools had fought so hard to discontinue. The new school built to educate African-American students was called Westside School. The Williamson County Sun wrote in 1963 that the Texas Supreme Court in Austin had approved the continuation of building the Westside School. Once it was built, the Georgetown School Board announced a 12-year plan to desegregate the schools one grade per year.
At almost the same time, the tide turned nationally, with federal civil right legislation passed in 1964 and 1965 that made de-jure segregation illegal, and Georgetown was finally fully integrated in 1966. Essentially the Georgetown School Board sped up their decision to integrate because they did not want to make any choices that would rob them of federal aid.
In April of 1966, the Georgetown School Board approved of a new grade division plan for the school system to have kindergarten and grades one through three at Williams Elementary School; grades four and five at the Westside School campus; grades six through eight at the Georgetown Junior High School campus; and grades nine through twelve at the Georgetown High School campus.
That same year, the old Marshall-Carver building was demolished. According to Ms. Paulette Taylor, the awards the students at Marshall-Carver had gained were never seen after the school was destroyed.
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The Westside School built to replace Marshall-Carver still stands today on West 17th street. It accommodated African-American students from 1st-12th grade from 1964 until 1966. Westside was later used as an integrated elementary school called Carver Elementary School until 2015 (and where Ms. Taylor was a beloved teacher). The building now houses the Carver Center for Families. The Carver name also continues on in the much more recently built Carver Elementary School, located in the Teravista suburb on the south side of town near Westinghouse Road.
Remembering Marshall-Carver School is essential to the history of Georgetown because it not only reveals the struggles of African Americans within the community but their joys. A great statement from Ms. Paulette Taylor summed this up for me: “You don’t miss what you never had, until you realize what you’ve missed.” Many of the African-American students at the time of segregation loved the small multi-grade family-oriented school they got to call their own. They had their own history and events that distinguished them from the White community, which many feared would be erased if they integrated.
The Marshall-Carver name should be remembered today because it signifies tenacity and perseverance of the African-American community in Georgetown.
