Fight continues for preservation of historic school in Georgetown
The Richard Allen School in Georgetown is closed, vacant, and set to become a community center for the Georgetown Boys and Girls Club.
However, on Friday, it was presented as an oral history project by Sussex County Historic Preservation Officer, Dan Parsons. It’s something that the community hopes will be enough to get the Boys and Girls Club to look for a different location in Georgetown.
“We’re not knocking that, all were saying is that we don’t want them to take Richard Allen, put them in there and then destroy what is our history,” says Darrell Melvin, a Georgetown, Delaware resident.
The school opened back in the 1920’s as one of the 89 schools built with funds from Pierre S. Du Pont during an era of segregation in Delaware. DuPont reportedly spent more than $6 million to build African American schools throughout the state because of the segregation.
“We had doctors, lawyers, judges, and everything to come from that school,” says Harry Crapper, who attended the school as a child. “We were a community, we were like a family.”
Parsons revealed his findings from the project in front of the Richard Allen Coalition and other county residents on Friday. The coalition is made up of neighborhood residents, former school students, and others who want to see the school preserved.
Parsons says he hopes to get the school nominated on the National Register of Historic Places. While the nomination would not forbid the Boys and Girls Club from moving in, residents hope it would be enough for the group to understand the building’s importance, and move the much-needed community center to a different location in Georgetown.
“We’re not fighting the Boys and Girls Club, we’re fighting for our history,” says Marian Morris, a former student of the school.
According to Georgetown’s Mayor, Bill West, the Boys and Girls Club is still set to move into the building, but there is not an official timeline. He says the town hopes to come to an agreement that will satisfy both sides of the issue.
47 ABC reached out to the Boys and Girls Club of Delaware for comment and we are still waiting to hear back.
