The Greenbrier Historical Society rolled out a new exhibit, “Know Your School: Education and Opportunity at the Bolling School,” on Saturday, Feb. 26.
The exhibit is on display at the Greenbrier Community School, the site of the former Bolling School. The society held a digital rollout for the exhibit, broken down into several videos.
The first is hosted by Abi Smith, archive assistant who helped put together the exhibit.
“We just finished it up, so I wanted to give you a sneak peek behind the scenes guided tour,” Smith said in the first video. “Bolling actually began after the Civil War,” Smith said. “We know that community members founded one of the first Black schools here in Greenbrier County in Lewisburg and White Sulphur. What originally started as Lewisburg Colored Graded School evolves into Bolling High School. That was actually the only Black high school that existed in the entire county. The exhibit that we have here today really looks at the faculty. [When] we talked Bolling alumni, one of the things that we kept hearing over and over again was how important the faculty was to them and to their future success.”
The second video gives a platform to three former students of the Bolling School – Alex Pryor, who attended from first to sixth grade, Lewisburg Mayor Beverly White, who attended from first grade through seventh grade, and Janice Cooley, who attended from first through sixth grade. Each woman spoke of their memories of teachers, protocols, and the smaller stories that truly make up the school experience.
Alex Pyror, Beverly White, and Janice Cooley. |
A third video features the creators of the Bolling exhibit, including Smith and Cooley, president of the board of directors for the Greenbrier Historical Society; Toni Ogden, curator and education director; and Greenbrier Community School Head of School Rece Nester.
The exhibit focuses more on telling the human stories of teachers, administrators, and students, rather than looking at the formation of the institution itself.
“The school was originally [founded] in 1870,” explained Cooley. “Mr. Bolling was the first principal that established the school. Originally, it was first through third grade, and with every year, it progressed to fifth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade until like 1936, when it became a one through 12. By that time Mr. Bolling was deceased and Earl Clay became the principal of the school. Our first graduating class for Bolling High School was around 1935. Pearl Carter, who’s one of the teachers that are recognized here today was part of that first class.”
The exhibit spans from 1870 to 1964, when the schools were integrated.
“One thing the board of education did do, when immigration came, … they said, ‘you don’t have to go this year, but next year, you’ll have to go,’” said White. “My seventh-grade year, there were three in the seventh grade and five in the eighth grade. They let us stay that year, but I knew, my eighth-grade year, we would have to go across town.”
the exhibit installed in the gym of Greenbrier Community School (the former Bolling School building) and is open for visitors.
“The exhibit is currently in the gymnasium up on the stage, because the gym portion of the school is our community center,” Nester explained. “When we had originally started discussing an exhibit, and what that would look like, and where it would go, we had planned on putting it in the main stairwell of the school. Once the space was renovated, and we were thinking about [community that rents the gym]. We wanted it to appear on the stage, where people are coming in and out, and [where] they can really have time to take it in.”
In addition to these interviews, the exhibit features oral histories as told by the Greenbrier Valley residents.
“The clips come from oral histories that either we’ve collected, or other people have collected,” Smith said. “Speaking kind of back to the research, when we started to dive into this, there were a couple oral histories that had already been completed of Bolling alumni. … We also started this community day project as a larger oral history push to increase that collection of stories. Several of these quotes come from community individuals really just describing their experiences of Bolling. We just saw [the experiences] repeated over and over and over again through all the stories that people told us.”
“The … thing our teachers taught us, and I think it does stick with us today, is accountability and responsibility,” White said. “Everything that we were learning with being on time, and showing up for class, and getting your lessons, it’s all about accountability and responsibility. That’s what we do today. You don’t think about it per se, but that’s what’s ingrained in you. That’s what you do. That’s who you are. You’re responsible and you’re accountable for everything that you do.”
“They also taught us how to conduct ourselves,” Pryor said. “Back then, it wasn’t a good time. Times aren’t very good – it was like you’re walking into fire. What do you do? Do you fight that fire? Try to put it out? … They gave us the tools to leave this school and to go somewhere else.”
“Those tools strengthened who we were and confidence in who we were,” Cooley said. “It wasn’t like we use our fists or anything like that – I remember, I decided I wanted to be a cheerleader when I was over there in the seventh grade. They didn’t have an African American cheerleader. I remember difficult times, especially when the team had to go outside of Lewisburg. … I remember hearing people in the stands, calling me names. I was just a little girl, young girl. I look back today, and I’m like, ‘how did I do that and not fall apart?’ … I was confident in who I was. I didn’t let it bother me. I just saw that it’s just sheer ignorance, and went on my way.”
Janice Cooley, Abigail Smith, Toni Ogden, and Rece Nester. |
The trio was asked if they had a lot of strict teachers.
“They just wanted us to do well,” White said.
“They wanted us to learn, they weren’t mean,” Cooley said.
“All of us lived in the neighborhood,” Pryor said. “[Ms. Cabell] knocked on my door several times. They would come to your house, tell your parents. It wasn’t ‘here’s a note, take this note [to your parents].’ Nine times out of 10, the parents wouldn’t get the note, so they would show up at your house. It was very good. It let me know that teachers cared. I loved all my teachers, everyone I had. They showed an interest.”
“That’s why we can still sit here and talk about it,” Cooley said.
Now, athough the school is now gone, the lessons its graduates learned continue to have an influence in the Greenbrier Valley.
“We have always been accepting of people,” White said. “We haven’t always been accepted, but there was not a time when a white child didn’t feel accepted in this neighborhood. I think that spoke volumes on how we were raised. [Alumni say] their best years were at Bolling and that’s because of the spirit that’s been in these walls as long as we’ve been alive.”
“That spirit will never leave,” Pryor said.
“It’s inside us,” Cooley said.
Cooley thanked the historical society staff for their work.
“We’re really honored to have people like Abi and Toni who are so passionate about their work. [They] will spend endless hours doing research, research, research, research, and call me up [to say] ‘Janice guess what we found!’” Cooley said. “It takes people like this, who are passionate about history, to do things like this.”
The videos can be found on the Greenbrier Historical Society Facebook page.
Abigail Smith with the exhibit. |
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