Did you know that a school built for African-American children during the Jim Crow era in Lawrenceburg is still standing? And that there is a fantastic group of people working to preserve it?

Since 2019, the West Gaines School Community Center group has worked to purchase and preserve what was once known as the “West Gaines Colored School.” According to the WGSCC website, preservation of the building is particularly crucial because “the black community in Lawrenceburg considers it the last public landmark of their past.”

The building, indeed, has a storied past.

Beginning in 1866, just one year after the abolition of slavery, Tennessee’s segregation laws prohibited white and black children from attending school together. It was one of the first in a line of Jim Crow laws intended to create a racially segregated society in the wake of the Civil War.

Lawrence County, whose population of African Americans plummeted after emancipation, never had a large number of black schools. There were just 5 such schools in the entire county by 1875, including a small frame building erected behind St. John’s Methodist Church on what was then the western edge of Lawrenceburg.

This building served as Lawrenceburg’s black school until, challenged by overcrowding, the Lawrence County Board of Education appointed a committee to explore the construction of a new black school in 1928. By 1929, the committee had selected teachers and gathered funds ($500 from the Rosenwald Fund and $200 from the the city’s black citizens) and was prepared to proceed with construction.

But, in 1931, the project was stopped in its tracks when a complaint was filed by some white citizens. At issue was the location of the building on a 3-acre tract on West Gaines Street. The complaint took issue with the building because it supposedly “was depreciative of property values in this immediate section and against the peace, tranquility and general welfare” of the area’s white inhabitants. The case went all the way to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which ruled that the school was not a nuisance and that the court could not stop its construction.

However, the delay brought about by the lawsuit dealt a blow to the committee’s funding plan. By the time the court handed down its decision, the Rosenwald money was no longer available, prompting the board of education to adjust its plans. By 1937, the school was finally completed at the West Gaines location, thanks in part to funding obtained from the New Deal.

The school served grades 1-8, and a gym and additional classrooms were added in the early 1950s. Black students who wished to attend high school had to take a bus from the West Gaines School to Mt. Pleasant in Maury County, the closest black high school in the area.

The West Gaines School closed its doors in the 1960s when the Lawrence County School System was desegregated. For several years, the building was used as the central office of the Board of Education.

The Lawrence County Commission voted unanimously to give the property to the WGSCC on September 24, 2024, and on November 26 voted “to give a previously budgeted $45,000 toward a new roof for the building.” The WGSCC is currently in the process of renovating the building, and, according to their Facebook page, plan for the building to include “a state-of-the-art museum showcasing the history of Black residents…educational programs for students of all ages focusing on Black history, culture, and current events…[and] community events and gatherings such as lectures, film screenings, and cultural celebrations.”

To donate to the organization’s efforts to renovate the West Gaines School, follow this link: https://westgainesscc.org/your-donation-will-help-us…/