Rediscovering Educational Giants: African American Schools in Bulloch County, Georgia 1920-1949

This study provided in depth knowledge of the forty-three African American schools existing in Bulloch County, Georgia, between the years 1920 and 1949. The three areas studied were their physical appearances, their curricular aspects, and their funding practices. The first area dealt with their external physical appearances and the internal environment of each school. The next area concerned their curricular aspects. Information such as subjects taught, teachers, supervision, length of the school year and school day, and school closing exercises was presented. The last area concerned the funding practices of these schools. This study included Rosenwald, Barrett-Roger, and Smith-Hughes funding as well as state and local funding. It also investigated fund-raising and self-help practices. These 43 schools were divided into three groups. The first group was the community schools which had three subgroups-church-schools, those African American schools that were taught within a church; those schools which were located near an African American church; and those community schools that had a different location. The other two categories were the four district schools and the one industrial school. Both written documentation and oral narratives were presented to provide historical information about each school. This study concluded with a comparative analysis among the three school groups to see what similarities they shared and what major differences made each group unique from the other two in regard to the three areas of interest, namely, their physical appearances, their curricular aspects, and, lastly, their funding practices