Buena Vista Colored School: A History that Lives on in the Community

Community mother and daughter, Irma and Danta Thompson, share memories of Buena Vista Colored School and discuss how education facilitated success amidst challenges and disadvantage.

The Colored School

The Buena Vista Colored School is a little brick schoolhouse located on Rockbridge Avenue and 30th Street. It was built in 1891 and officially opened in 1892 as a school for African-American children. At its beginning there were 30 students in attendance and only one room.

The school initially had no electricity or indoor plumbing, but was warmed by a coal-and-wood stove. An outhouse was located outside. Principal and head teacher, John E. J. Moore, taught first through seventh grades from 1896–1924, hiring an assistant teacher in 1915. In 1926, a second room was added to the building.

In 1935, Mrs. Frances Price Ragsdale took over as principal until the school closed in 1957. Under Mrs. Ragsdale, first through fifth grade students were taught together in a single room. Eventually a sink, a water fountain, and electric lights were installed, but not indoor toilets.

Irma Thompson

Irma Thompson, president of the Buena Vista Colored School Historical Society, was born and raised in Buena Vista and recently celebrated her hundredth birthday. She and her daughter, Danta, both attended the Colored School as children.

Mrs. Thompson remembers only pieces from her years in the upper grades at the colored school. Students walked to school carrying lunches from home, she said, as there were no buses to provide transportation. Many walked three to four miles each morning. An hour was allowed for lunch, during which time students living near enough were allowed to walk home.

Each day began with an inspection, in which the teacher would check students’ hair, fingernails and ears for cleanliness. Daily opening activities also included reciting Bible verses and singing hymns.

During the years of Thompson’s attendance, the school was divided into three rooms. One room for students in first through fourth grade, another for grades five through seven, and a small room in the middle where students kept their lunches and backpacks.

The school’s curriculum covered arithmetic, spelling, reading, English, and geography. Thompson noted that she still remembered her geography textbook being the largest. The school still lacked electricity, indoor plumbing of any kind, and playground equipment.

Thompson fondly recalled Christmases as a child when all community school children would walk up to the Southern Seminary (now SVU Main Hall) to sing carols.

Irma Thompson went on to attend high school and college, both of which required enormous sacrifice and hard work. According to an interview she gave with Beverly Tucker in 2012, Thompson was only able to attend two years of high school in Lexington (as was the case for all black students). She attended one year of high school at Bluefield State College in West Virginia before its closing, and finished her final year at a school in Lynchburg.

“My parents were determined I would have an education,” she said. This required her to work multiple jobs, such as babysitting and teaching others to drive, earning two dollars per week.

She became a teacher, working at an elementary school in Glasgow, Virginia for 13 years, before returning to Buena Vista to teach at the Park Avenue building (now police station), which served as the school for African-American children following the closing of the Colored School.

Danta Thompson

Irma Thompson’s daughter, Danta, was born in 1944 and attended the Colored School beginning in first grade. Her experience differed from her mother’s in that the school building had electricity when she attended, and all classes (first through fifth grade) were taught in one room.

Danta learned the same subjects as her mother, and recalls reading Dick and Jane books as a first grader. During her years as a student, children still walked to school. One classmate she remembers lived four miles away, but always had perfect attendance.

The school’s only playground equipment at the time was a rusty swing-set frame with no swings. “Our recreation was dodgeball,” Danta said, “and breaking open chestnuts on a big rock outside the school.” Students would also gather to watch a neighbor slaughter hogs at a house near the school. “It was something to do,” she said, “and now I know how to slaughter a hog.”

The school received little funding compared with schools for white children at the time. White schools had libraries, lunchrooms, indoor bathrooms, recreational equipment, and separate rooms for each grade, Danta explained. None of these luxuries were enjoyed at the Colored School. When black students needed to use the bathroom, they had to walk outside to the outhouse, regardless of the weather. “You had to watch out for snakes too!”

Despite these disadvantages, Danta believes the experience of black students in segregated schools was highly beneficial and important in providing a foundational education. She said that students of the Colored School learned in a well-ordered, disciplined and compassionate environment, where teachers sought understanding of each individual child’s background, rather than “lumping students together into categories.”

“They (the teachers) carried themselves as role models, and instilled values into their students.”

Danta also expressed appreciation for the variety of subjects taught in the Colored School, including poetry, classic literature, music, and other cultural studies. “We actually learned our own history,” she said, adding that the common cultural bond among students and teachers that existed in segregated schools no longer existed after desegregation.

“We understood what each other was going through,” she said, “We understood that education was the key to success and upward mobility.”

Danta went on to receive a Master’s degree at Lincoln University in Human Services, with a concentration in Counseling.

The Colored School Today

On December 4, 2002, the Buena Vista Colored School was listed on the Virginia National Landmarks Register.

The mission statement of the Buena Vista Colored School Historical Society goes as follows:

To protect and preserve the structural integrity of the school building and the land it is on, not only because it is a part of Virginia’s history but also because there are so few one-room schools remaining in the United States today.

To secure funds to restore the school to its original condition and use it as an educational museum to house relevant memorabilia such as books, papers, photographs, and artifacts pertaining to the history of area African Americans.

Community members of all ages are encouraged to join and support this organization.

Link: http://buenavistacoloredschool.com