Flashlight to Streetlight
John S. Dawson High School, St. Francisville, LA.
It provided very important educational opportunities for African Americans in West Feliciana Parish. Most significantly, it was the first high school in West Feliciana Parish for African Americans. It provided students with a well-rounded educational foundation that enabled them to progress to college and pursue many different professions. At the beginning of the twentieth century, public education in Louisiana was in a terrible state of affairs. The state constitution of 1898 had legally mandated the already status quo segregation of schools by race, and at that time students of all races were severely underserved. The state’s public school system was characterized by crude, deteriorating school houses and abysmally low attendance. During the first two decades of the century, great Improvements were made in school house construction, curriculum standardization, and attendance through transportation advances and consolidation. However, these developments generally applied only to the white schools. In Louisiana’s underfunded dual school system, African-American schools received little to no investment from their parish school boards. The disparity this created between the two separate and supposedly equal school systems was blatant.
John S. Dawson High School, St. Francisville, LA.
It provided very important educational opportunities for African Americans in West Feliciana Parish. Most significantly, it was the first high school in West Feliciana Parish for African Americans. It provided students with a well-rounded educational foundation that enabled them to progress to college and pursue many different professions. At the beginning of the twentieth century, public education in Louisiana was in a terrible state of affairs. The state constitution of 1898 had legally mandated the already status quo segregation of schools by race, and at that time students of all races were severely underserved. The state’s public school system was characterized by crude, deteriorating school houses and abysmally low attendance. During the first two decades of the century, great Improvements were made in school house construction, curriculum standardization, and attendance through transportation advances and consolidation. However, these developments generally applied only to the white schools. In Louisiana’s underfunded dual school system, African-American schools received little to no investment from their parish school boards. The disparity this created between the two separate and supposedly equal school systems was blatant.