Carver High School (Tupelo, Mississippi)

Carver High School was a public secondary school in Tupelo, Mississippi, United States. It served as the high school for black students until the public schools were integrated in the late 1960s. The buildings are now Carver Elementary School.

Carver High School
Location
Map
,
United States
Coordinates34°16′20″N 88°42′23″W / 34.272222°N 88.706389°W / 34.272222; -88.706389
Information
Former nameLee County Training School
TypeSegregated public school

History

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Before it was renamed the school was known as the Lee County Training School. As with many black schools in Mississippi and throughout the South, it was called a training school in part because it was considered helpful in promoting education for blacks and in part due to local school boards preference not to call them high schools.[1] In 1971 the schools were officially integrated, with Tupelo High School becoming the high school for students of all races.[2] All ninth grade students, regardless of race, were placed at Carver.[3]

Carver enjoyed an arrangement with Tupelo High School wherein both teams shared a common football field, Robins Field, from 1921 until integration. Tupelo played on Friday nights and Carver on Saturdays.[4]

Notable alumni

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  • Frank Dowsing, first black football player at both Tupelo High School and Mississippi State attended Carver until voluntary integration was allowed in 1968.[5]
  • Etta Zuber Falconer, mathematician[6]

References

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  1. ^ Walker, Vanessa Siddle (1996). Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. p. 35. ISBN 9780807845813. OCLC 33407927. the choice of "training" in the title reflected the school naming of the era as motivated by... who sought to sell industrial education to the Negro population... ...were called training schools partly because the local school boards "did not wish to call them high schools."
  2. ^ "Dozens celeberate [sic] George Washington Carver school reunion". July 7, 2018. Retrieved November 4, 2018.
  3. ^ "Carver High School". Retrieved November 4, 2018.
  4. ^ Dakwar, Adi; Trowbridge, David J. (July 9, 2017). "Robins Field, Tupelo". Clio. Archived from the original on February 13, 2020. Retrieved February 13, 2020.
  5. ^ Maraniss, Andrew (August 31, 2017). "Frank Dowsing, Mississippi State's first black football player, is almost unknown today". Retrieved July 24, 2018.
  6. ^ Morrow, Charlene; Perl, Teri (1998). Notable Women in Mathematics: A Biographical Dictionary. p. 43. ISBN 9780313291319.