In late May, Glen McInnis pulled down the huge world map from his classroom wall and removed the world flags that were strung around the classroom. The bulletin board stood bare without the colorful border and background that had decorated it since last August. The student work that had once adorned the walls lay in a heap in an overflowing trash can.
With a parting glance, he closed the door to his Sam M. Brinkley Middle School classroom before walking down the hall past the school’s now-empty walls and out into the sunshine. The final boxes filled with classroom supplies and resources already sat loaded into his car. He turned to take a final look at the building he had occupied since 2011 and drove away.
“It was pretty sad. You know you look at certain places and you would like for them to be there until the end,” the educator told the Mississippi Free Press. “I thought that I was going to be like my coworker and retire from Brinkley—do my 25 years and let that be it.”
Glen McInnis taught eighth-grade social studies and coached basketball at Brinkley Middle School before the school consolidated with Lanier High School. He has transferred to Murrah High School for the coming academic year. Photo courtesy Glen McInnis
Instead, the former eighth-grade social studies teacher and Brinkley boys basketball coach will move into a new classroom to begin teaching at Murrah High School in a few weeks.
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In early May, the Jackson Public School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved the consolidation of Brinkley Middle School’s seventh- and eighth-grade classes into the existing W. H. Lanier High School. Lanier Junior-Senior High School will open at the start of the upcoming 2023-2024 school year. The merger marks the combination of two of the city’s most historic schools.
A Legacy of Civil Disobedience
Brinkley and Lanier were once two of only three Black high schools in the Jackson city limits. JPS, then known as the Jackson Municipal Separate School District, was separated into all-Black and predominately white schools. Brinkley, Jim Hill and Lanier High
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