The robust tones of an African-American spiritual drifted out of a courtyard in Lexington on Saturday morning, sung by men and women who’d spent childhood days on those grounds. 

Come by here, Lord, come by here

Oh Lord, come by here

Dozens of voices joined in the hymn of supplication, solidarity, resilience, including folks who learned to read, write and count at the site during a time when a child’s race decided where he or she went to school in South Carolina. 

Come in the spirit, Lord, come by here

Oh Lord, come by here

Over a hundred people had gathered, just outside the brick walls of the Rosenwald Community Learning Center, to honor its predecessor: a wood-frame school built in 1928-1929, among the period’s state-of-the-art educational facilities for African-American students.

Nearly a century after the Lexington school opened its doors, former students and teachers traveled from near and far to witness the unveiling of a historical marker from the S.C. African American Heritage Commission. 

The crowd was dotted with people wearing bright blue shirts printed with “Lexington Rosenwald High School alumni foundation” and a picture of the school mascot, a hornet, in gold.

“This is the work that God has called us to do, to maintain our history, to make sure the stories of our history are told and live through us,” K. Renee’ Robertson, a commissioner at the African American Heritage Commission, told the attendees. “We will never let it die, and we will never go back.” 

The Lexington school was built through the Rosenwald Schools fund, a matching grant established by business executive Julius Rosenwald in the early 20th century to improve education for African Americans in the segregated south. Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, started the program with Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), who was born into slavery. 

Between 1913 and 1938, the Rosenwald Fund archives state, the schools fund — with financial buy-in from local communities and government leaders — led to the construction of more than 5,000 schools, teacher homes and libraries in 15 states. 

Around 500 Rosenwald Schools were constructed in South Carolina, but only 40-some remain. During an era when state government support for educating African American children was “woefully inadequate,” Rosenwald Schools played a critical role in educating South Carolina’s children, according to the S.C. Department of Archives and History.

The Lexington Rosenwald school started out with five teachers, offering elementary education. The late-1920s schoolhouse was updated in 1953, and a wing was added in 1955 using state equalization funds, the historical marker reads. At that point, it had expanded to teach high school.

On Saturday, several school alumni stood at the courtyard lectern and reminisced about their years at the Rosenwald school. 

They spoke about favorite teachers and subjects, the trophies their sports teams won, the school’s inaugural 1955 yearbook, forging friendships that turned into lifelong bonds including marriages, even their beloved cafeteria fare.

There were cheers from the crowd when Linda Black, member of the class of 1965, mentioned the spaghetti lunches. Black bemoaned not being able to ride the school bus because she lived only two doors away from the school.

Mary Coleman, class of 1955, lived 10 miles away, in Gilbert. Before the Lexington Rosenwald school started a bus route in the 1950s, she told the Chronicle, getting to class was a regular challenge. She’d either catch a ride with uncles who worked at sawmills in Lexington or hop on a Greyhound bus.  

Coleman, the most senior alumni at the ceremony, said the Lexington Rosenwald school gave her a chance to finish high school since Gilbert’s single-room school for African-American children ran only to seventh grade. Some students traveled from Pelion and Irmo. 

“In the ‘50s, not everyone was able to continue their education after they graduated from the one-room schools,” Coleman, 89, said in an interview. She said her parents wanted to give her more opportunities to succeed by attending the Lexington Rosenwald school.

Its original, wooden structure was demolished after the local school district ended the racial segregation of students in 1969. The school became Lexington Intermediate School. 

Now, only the added wing remains, which has been converted to the community learning center.

The hallway features black-and-white photos of Lexington Rosenwald alumni beside their present-day pictures. The exhibits also include articles about legal battles that led to Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that decreed segregating public school children on the basis of race was unconstitutional.

It took about a decade for segregated schools to begin ending the practice.  

As a young child, Coleman said, she thought segregation was “just the way it’s supposed to be.” But by the time she was in high school, as the American civil rights movement was ramping up, Coleman said she realized the system was wrong and needed to change.