Local Historian educates community on Historic Sturgis One-Room Black Only School for Children
MARYLAND – This Friday the Beach to Bay Heritage Area unveiled an interpretive sign on Willow Street in Pocomoke City on June 14th. The sign acknowledges the history and legacy of the Sturgis One-Room School which is now a museum.
Beach Bay to Heritage Area has commissioned interpretive signs designed to help continue the celebration of the African American community, the history, and impact that African Americans have had on our region’s development and heritage. Dr. Clara Small is a published author, historian and former professor at Salisbury University for 36 years. She became one of the leading scholars on African American History on the Eastern Shore and explains why the Sturgis School was built in the first place. “One of the things that blacks wanted and needed at the time. First, to find families that had been separated during slavery, second to find gainful employment, and third was to get an education for their children and for themselves… The first record we have with the Worcester County Schools was in 1905, it was called the Sturgis colored school. Students went there from the first to the seventh grade, there was not a high school in Worcester County for blacks. they had to come up 30 miles up to Salisbury.”
African Americans at that time paid taxes, but didn’t see the benefits from Worcester County, according to Dr. Small, who also works on the board of Beach to Bay Heritage Area where Lisa Challenger serves as the Executive Director. Challenger says this is just one of many interpretive signs that explain the history, a first step to educating the community. “We have really been working to do a better job of telling the African American Heritage story here on the shore, and we got a grant, so that’s why now.” She says there are so many people who have contributed to the Eastern Shore, and we just don’t know about them. This is a way they can be acknowledged, and the community can be informed.
Dr. Small says the school is one of the last that was created for the purpose of educating Blacks. She tells us how the community needs to not only know about this rich history but preserve it as well. “Because most people have no clue about the history of African Americans on Delmarva… As Dick Gregory would say, a man that has no history, and has no knowledge of himself, is like a tree without roots, a tree without roots cannot stand.”
Beach to Bay Heritage says about a dozen signs have been unveiled and there are more than 20 different landmarks that will be recognized on Delmarva. Their overall mission is to promote, preserve and protect the cultural heritage of Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore.
