Teacher Mary Beasley ushered Juanita Floyd and her first-grade classmates down the hall of the B.F. Ford School in New Albany, Miss., on April 9, 1968. Outside, the air was still cool that morning. Wooden floors amplified the students’ steps, creating a cacophony as they entered the school library. Floyd and her classmates claimed their spaces while the other students piled into the small room alongside them. Someone turned on a grainy black-and-white television, and the entire school huddled around the set.

On the screen, Bernice King laid in her mother Coretta’s lap. The little girl had just turned 5 years old two weeks earlier and was now at the funeral of her father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bernice’s white dress and ribbons starkly contrasted the mourners dressed in black around her. Floyd and her classmates were about the same age as the little girl who had just lost her father. Faculty and staff openly wept that morning in the crowded room. The magnitude of King’s death weighed heavily on the adults in the room. Their students, even without completely understanding the depth of the situation, could nevertheless feel the importance of that moment.

“That was something. It was amazing to see the teachers crying and tears just running down their faces,” Floyd said in an interview with the B.F. Ford Project. “I knew it was a sad occasion and a moment in history.”

The Union County Training School was opened in this Baker Street home, a dilapidated three-story Gothic Revival mansion donated to the New Albany School Board. Photo courtesy Cheryl Kimmons Davis

Students and staff of B.F. Ford School comforted one another as they joined the world in mourning that day. The moment was particularly poignant for those gathered in the library of the only high school for Black students in New Albany, Miss., where portions of King’s hopes for the nation were just beginning to be realized.

It had taken a while for the dream to materialize in Union County. In 1912, the New Albany School Board established the Union County Training School. The Baker Street home, a dilapidated three-story Gothic Revival mansion donated to the board, housed the school. Like most serving Black students at the time, the school had limited instruction materials, lab supplies and other resources. The white school, Central High School, passed down its used textbooks to students at the training school when it obtained new ones.

Cultivating Excellence

Hattiesburg, Miss., native Benjamin Franklin Ford was just 28 years old when he came to New Albany in 1921. He had accepted a role as a vocational agriculture teacher and as principal of the Union County Training School. When he arrived, the school employed only five teachers and provided education through the eighth grade. Ford, however, was passionate about African American children being able to graduate with high-school educations, and he brought that vision and determination to New Albany. Ford added a grade every year until he had extended the school’s education through the 10th grade. He then convinced the Union County School Board to transform the school into a four-year high school offering a diploma.

Ford’s work was not easy. His granddaughter, Cheryl Kimmons Davis, said her grandfather quickly won over his new home because of his dedication to education.

“He was a big man. He meant what he said, and he said what he meant,” Davis told the Mississippi Free Press on Feb. 24. “They all knew that he was a disciplinarian, but he also was a strong, staunch person for education, and he knew that the only way that (Blacks) were going to make it is that they excelled in education.”

B.F. Ford, a Hattiesburg, Miss., native, became the Union County Training School’s principal in 1921. The school initially served students through the eighth grade when he took the helm, but Ford added a grade each consecutive year and later convinced the school board to formally transform the institution into a four-year high school. Photo courtesy Union County Heritage Museum

In 1935, “Prof” as he was often called, helped the school acquire one of the first indoor gymnasiums at an African American school as well as a home economics building, and he later saw to the addition of a vocational building in 1941. Two years later, the Union County Training School building burned. Teachers held classes in the gymnasium and in the home economics building while Ford oversaw the construction of the new school. Developers finished the new building in 1948. Architect Robery McKnight designed the new school, described as a Streamline Art Moderne-style building and a source of pride for the community.

“Of course, people at first did not take to him, but then when they saw how dedicated he was in wanting to do the work, even the white people in the school system realized how dedicated he was, and so they helped him because they wanted African Americans to have a school,” David said.

The students at B.F. Ford School took advantage of every opportunity afforded to them.

‘Before Their Time’

One afternoon in 1954, eighth-grader Lee Russell Howell received his teacher’s permission to skip study hall. He instead walked down to the high-school auditorium where the high-school choir was practicing. Howell’s family was known for its musical talent, and Union County Training school music teacher Leota Gibson welcomed the young singer into the group.

“I was in eighth grade singing with the high-school people, and that got me really involved in music, and I sang with the high-school choir until I graduated,” Howell said.

Howell went on to attend Rust College in Holly Springs, Miss., on a music scholarship, singing and traveling with the college’s choir. Once he graduated from Rust in 1963, he returned to the B.F. Ford School to complete his student teaching.

Lee Russell Howell attended B.F. Ford School until graduation. Howell joined the school choir in eighth grade and eventually earned a music scholarship to Rust College in Holly Springs, Miss. Photo courtesy Union County Heritage Museum

Teachers at B.F. Ford School ensured that students gained exposure to the outside world. Before the late 1960s, Black people had limited options for travel because most accommodations, restaurants and other public areas were prohibited. Gibson used “The Green Book,” a book for African-American travelers published from 1936 to 1966 to plan trips for the students. B.F. Ford students took numerous field trips to places like Washington, D.C.; Canada; the 1964-1965 World’s Fair in New York City; George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, Va.; and Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.

“They were before their time,” Davis said. “A lot of the things that they did for that time were basically unheard of. … It was a school that was really before its time for that time period here in Mississippi.”

Ford even coached the school’s undefeated basketball team. The Buckeyes won a state championship in 1947. The team was state champion again in 1953 after the school was named for B.F. Ford.

Ford was still principal of the school when he died in 1955. Davis said her aunt, Inez Ford, became the principal then. The school was renamed to B.F. Ford School shortly after his death. It remained the main African American high school in Union County until desegregation.

Integration and Closure

Desegregation came little more than a year after the school gathered to mourn Dr. King. The last senior class graduated from B.F. Ford School in spring 1969 with New Albany schools being fully integrated that August.

Floyd recalls her mother preparing her to attend her new school in her book “Summer of 1969.”

“That summer, my mother said to me, ‘You’re going to a new school,’ and I asked, ‘Will my friends be there?’ She (told) me probably not but that I would make new friends,” she said.

The Union County Training School Graduating Class of 1942 included B.F. Ford’s son B.F. Ford, Jr. Photo courtesy Cheryl Kimmons Davis

Integration split up many of the students from the school as B.F. Ford closed down. High-school students went to W. P. Daniel High School, students in grades 6 through 8 attended Central Junior High School, and elementary-age students moved to the school closest to their homes—meaning that those within the New Albany City limits attended Central Elementary and Mattie Thompson Elementary School. If a student lived outside of the city limits but in Union County, they attended Myrtle, Ingomar, East Union and West Union elementary schools.

Most of the teachers moved to other local schools as well. Davis said her aunt Inez Ford became the assistant superintendent for the newly integrated school district. B.F. Ford School reopened in 1971 as a fully integrated elementary school but closed permanently in 2000 when a new elementary school, Sam T. Barkley, was constructed in New Albany.

Preserving the Legacy

The main building of the former B.F. Ford School is now used for the local Head Start program. The nearby gym is now home to the Boys and Girls Club of New Albany. Students who attended B.F. Ford School gather each Memorial Day weekend for a reunion. This year’s plans are for a Green and Gold Gala where alumni will present their scholarships in varying amounts to high-school graduates in Union County. Celebrations will also include the annual Buckeyes vs. Bulldogs Shootout basketball competition, picnicking and tailgating on the school grounds, a parade, a meet-and-greet, a fish fry, music, and food and crafts vendors.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History placed a state historic marker on the school in 2022. The school also achieved a listing on the National Register of Historic Places the same year.

Union County Heritage Museum Director Jill Smith and Americorps VISTA member Penny Blissett are working diligently to collect the oral, visual and written history of the Union County Training School, which later became the B.F. Ford School. The museum hosts an exhibit featuring artifacts from the school. Photo courtesy Union County Heritage Museum

The Union Cou n ty Heritage Museum continues to collect artifacts and record the stories of the students who attended the school. The museum’s YouTube page houses many of the videos assembled over the years. Still, a number of details about the historic school have yet to be recorded.

“Unfortunately, there is not a lot of written information that has been provided to the museum,” Union County Heritage Museum Americorps VISTA member Penny Blissett said. “And I can tell you that my assessment is that we have not been able to get people to tell the story so that the stories can be documented. So we are trying our best to get the information documented.”

For more information on Mississippi locations honored in the National Register of Historic Places, browse the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s catalogue.

Read original article by clicking here.

New Albany’s Earliest High School for Blacks Still Remembered and Celebrated

Cultivating Excellence

‘Before Their Time’

Integration and Closure

Preserving the Legacy

Local Dining Stream

Things To Do

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