The Beginning of Black Public Education in Florida

After the Civil War African American’s placed a priority on free public education as a condition of their freedom from bondage. In 1868 Assistant Commissioner of the Freedman’s Bureau Col. John T. Sprague reported, “there is no abatement in the desire shown by the freedmen for their own education and that of their children.” 

Black citizens in Florida lobbied and state politicians responded by creating a system of free public education in Florida through the Florida Constitution of 1869 and state laws passed in 1869.

The Civil Rights Act of 1873 passed by the Florida Legislature banned racial discrimination in all public schools in Florida.

Source: Joe M. Richardson, The Negro in the Reconstruction of Florida, 1865-1877 Tallahassee: Florida State University, 1965.

Photo Source, “Freedman School 1863-1865, possible South Carolina. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540

Racial Segregation in Florida

With the passing of the 1885 Florida Constitution public and private schools would be segregated by race (Section 12). Subsequent legislation passed in 1895 and 1913 would enforce strict separation of the races in the classroom including barring white teachers and administrators from all black public and private schools.

Pictured: 1885 Florida Constitution, sections 12-15. Florida Memory, Florida State Archives, Constitution of 1885.

Orlando Colored School

Jones High School was first admitted to the Orlando County Public School Board in the 1880s as the Orlando Colored Academy.

All black students in the county who wanted to go to high school went there.

John T. Stuften was principal from 1891 until 1894. He was the first black lawyer in Orlando during the 1880s and 1890s and believed that education and thrift would deliver freedom and acceptance to African Americans in the segregated South.

Pictured: John T. Stuften, photo courtesy of Florida Memory, State of Florida Archives in Tallahassee.

Johnson Academy

Established in 1895, the school now known as Jones High School was first an old frame building on the southwest corner of Garland Avenue and Church Street.

The school was moved to the corner of Jefferson and Chatham Streets and renamed Johnson Academy in honor of the principal Lymus Johnson.

Pictured Johnson Academy Teachers, n.d. Jones High School Historical Society

World War I

Administrators, teachers and students at Johnson Academy participated in the war effort by supporting the home front.

Johnson Academy raised $16.54 for the Red Cross in 1918 and in the same year held an event to raise money for war saving stamps.

By 1918 the Orange County School Board doubled the size of Johnson Academy, employed ten teachers and enlarged the building so it could fit up to four hundred students.

William Easton Jordan was born in 1895 and served admirably in World War I. He served in the 92nd Infantry Division (nicknamed the Buffalo Soldiers) and the 809th Pioneer Infantry Regiment and served on the war front in France. He was born in Orlando and was a student at Johnson Academy. The Orange County Draft Board in 1918 noted his occupation was “clerk” which meant he had an education in reading and math which was also recorded in the 1930 US Census where he was noted to be a local Orlando merchant.

Pictured: Service card for William Easton Jordan during World War I. Florida Memory WWI Service Cards, State of Florida Archives.

First Jones High School

In 1912, L.C. Jones became principal of Johnson Academy. Under his leadership, a new school was built in 1921 on the corner of Washington Street and Parramore Avenue. Because  his  family donated the land for the school, the school was renamed Jones High School. In 1931, Jones High School had its first graduation of students completing the twelfth grade.

Pictured L.C. Jones. Jones High School Historical Society

The Colored School Curriculum

Throughout the South in segregated black schools, the curriculum was focused around industrial and agricultural education. White schools included a liberal arts education missing from the segregated black schools. Segregated black schools throughout the South quietly taught a liberal arts curriculum along side an industrial arts program under fear if local or state officials found out their course work was based in literature, mathematics, Latin or science funding from the state and local governments would be at threat. At Jones before the 1950s teachers taught Latin, Mathematics, Geometry, Biology, Chemistry and Oratory to students in addition to the agriculture and industrial arts required by the state and county school systems. The school year was also a few months shorter for black students than white students in Orlando until the 1940s.  “We were taught that a liberal arts education was necessary, not just for getting a job, but just to make a person aware of his environment and his history and so on…”Audrey Reicherts (Class of 1947)

(Class of 1947-Quoted in Benjamin Brotemarkle Crossing Division Street: An Oral History of the African American Community in Orlando, original interview September 2001)

Pictured: Educational Survey Commission of the State of Florida, “Digest Survey Staff Report Elementary and Secondary Education” State Archives of Florida 1928

Click "View More" to enlarge the image.

National Negro Health Week

Educator and national African American leader Booker T. Washington launched National Negro Health Week in 1915 and was held annually in large cities and towns by black residents until the 1950s. African American leaders in Orlando sponsored the first Negro Health Week in 1922 and held it annually the first week of April until 1950. Jones High School participated in neighborhood clean up programs while state and local officials held programs for students at Jones High School to learn about healthy living and avoiding illness until the 1940s when those programs moved to the 1940s when those programs moved to the Community Betterment Center in Parramore. During the last Negro Health Week in 1950, teachers and students at Jones High School held a memorial to recognize Booker T. Washington and his efforts with National Negro Health Week. 

Learn more about National Negro Health Week at the National Archives by clicking here.

Pictured: Jones High School students from the 1920s, Jones High School Historical Society

Mary McLeod Bethune

Mary McLeod Bethune spoke at Jones High School on September 23rd, 1927. Jones High School was the center of the community and would host speakers like Bethune as well as other city wide events for African Americans in Orlando.

Pictured: Mary McLeod Bethune with graduating class, 1928 Florida Memory, State of Florida Archives Tallahassee Florida.

The High School Grades

“Jones High School was a good high school, it’s still a good high school. I went to Jones High School from early childhood to 1925-26, and that’s the time we graduated tenth grade. We were not going to the twelfth grade then. We had not reached that point in Orlando. There were some schools, some cities that did not go any further than eighth and ninth.

Pictured: Jones High School Tenth Grade Class from 1928. Source “Jones High School Through the Ages”

World War II

Principal Banks and the Jones High School Athletic Program raised over $1,500 for war bonds in 1944 & 1945 by donating portions of the money raised at athletic events. Jones High School was also the location for recruiting efforts for Parramore residents to volunteer in civilian and military capacities during the war.

Pictured: The Original Building of Jones High School from 1949, Jones High School Historical Society

Jones High “The Neighborhood School”

L. C. Jones along with the teachers and parents of Parramore wanted Jones High School to be a “neighborhood school.” This meant that the administrators, teachers, parents and students all lived in the same neighborhood and worshipped at the same churches. Residential segregation kept African Americans in the neighborhood and Jones High School was not only a school but a central community center for the residents of Parramore. Edna W. Coleman (class of 1932) recalled, “It was—what shall I say—family-orientated…Teachers were mostly surrogate mothers to the kids…They felt they needed it.” Before the 1950s, Jones High School was the location of special events, black celebrities would speak and perform at Jones for the Parramore community. Jones High School hosted evening vocational classes where adults could earn certificates in domestic trades such as cooking and maid service. Audrey Reicherts (class of 1947) remembered, “At one time, when I was growing up here in Orlando, Jones High School was, well, a cultural center because concerts were held there in the auditorium and outstanding events in the African-American community were held there and it was kind of a focal point for the activities of the for the African-American community.”

Quotes from Jones High School Centennial Celebration and Benjamin Brotemarkle Crossing Division Street: An Oral History of the African American Community in Orlando (original interview September 2001)

Pictured: Jones High School class of 1931, the first 12th grade class to graduate from the school. Jones High School Historical Society

The New Jones High School 1952

By the end of the 1940s, white local and state officials throughout Florida anticipated the Federal Government demanding racial integration as President Truman did with the US military and as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People began a successful legal campaign to end racial segregation in education that cumulated in the Brown v. Board Decision in 1954. In an effort to quell demands for racial integration and equality, white state and local officials put more money into black education in Florida and built news schools in hopes that the “separate but equal” doctrine to Jim Crow segregation would leave Florida’s school system segregated. In 1950 the Orange County School Board approved the building of new Jones High School and the original Jones High School would remain an elementary school named Callahan Elementary.

Pictured: Jones High School from 1957