Echoes of The Sandhills

Series 3 - Echo 5 — Crossroads and Change, 1940–1970

Consolidation, Community Schools, and the Impact of Desegregation in the Sandhills

By the mid-20th century, Black education in the Sandhills stood at a crossroads. The Rosenwald era had delivered durable buildings, trained teachers, and renewed confidence, but new forces were reshaping education across North Carolina. Consolidation replaced one- and two-room schools with centralized campuses. School buses extended the reach of education while quietly dismantling many small community schools. At the same time, African American families continued pressing for expanded secondary education, equal facilities, and fair funding.

The schools that emerged during this period were larger, more centralized, and often deeply symbolic. They represented progress, but they also carried the weight of loss, loss of neighborhood schools, local control, and institutions that had once served as the heart of rural Black life.

Building Regional Black Schools

As counties consolidated their school systems, several key institutions rose to serve broader geographic areas, drawing students from multiple communities and counties.

E. E. Smith High School (Cumberland County)Established in Fayetteville in 1957, E. E. Smith High School became one of the most prominent African American high schools in southeastern North Carolina. Named for educator and administrator E. E. Smith, the school reflected both progress and inequality: it offered expanded academic and extracurricular opportunities while remaining segregated. Students from rural Cumberland County, including former Rosenwald school communities, traveled long distances to attend. E. E. Smith became a source of pride, producing graduates who went on to college, military service, teaching, and civic leadership.

Johnsonville and Shawtown Schools (Harnett County)In Harnett County, communities such as Johnsonville and Shawtown experienced consolidation firsthand. Earlier local schools gave way to centralized facilities that served students from across the county. While these schools provided broader curricula and more stable staffing, families remembered the emotional cost of seeing community-built schools closed or repurposed. Churches once again stepped in, hosting meetings, graduations, and reunions to preserve a sense of continuity.

W. B. Wicker School (Lee County)In Lee County, the transition was anchored by what was originally known as the Lee County Training School, built in 1927 with Rosenwald support in Sanford. Designed to provide secondary education and teacher training for African American students, the school quickly became the educational center of Black life in the county.

In 1954, the school was renamed W. B. Wicker School in honor of William Bartelle Wicker, its first principal and a tireless advocate for Black education. Under his leadership, the school expanded academic offerings and served as the county’s Black high school for decades. Students traveled from rural Lee County communities, forming bonds that lasted long after graduation. W. B. Wicker remained a cornerstone of African American education until desegregation reshaped the school system, after which the building continued to serve the community in new roles.

West Southern Pines School (Moore County)In Moore County, West Southern Pines emerged as a consolidated school serving African American students from Southern Pines and surrounding rural areas. The school reflected the county’s shifting economy and demographics, educating children of domestic workers, laborers, and service employees connected to Pinehurst and the resort economy. West Southern Pines stood as both a beacon of opportunity and a reminder of segregation’s boundaries.

The Impact of Desegregation

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision promised equal education, but change came slowly and unevenly. In the Sandhills, desegregation often meant that Black students were reassigned to formerly white schools, while Black schools, many of them newer and deeply rooted in their communities, were closed, downgraded, or repurposed.

The professional impact of desegregation on African American educators varied by county and implementation. In certain districts, Black principals and teachers continued to lead their schools for extended periods following desegregation, preserving institutional knowledge and stability. Elsewhere, administrative restructuring and school closures resulted in diminished leadership roles or reassignment of experienced educators. Although desegregation expanded student access, it also altered long-standing educational relationships within Black communities.

What Was Gained, What Was Lost

By the early 1970s, Black education in the Sandhills had entered a new era. Access expanded, but ownership diminished. The legacy of earlier schools survived through alumni networks, church records, oral histories, and the physical buildings that still stand today.

The journey from brush arbor to Rosenwald school, from training school to consolidated high school, tells a story not only of education, but of determination, adaptation, and resilience.

The echoes remain in the names remembered, the buildings repurposed, and the generations shaped by teachers who believed that education was the surest path forward.

Looking Ahead — The People Behind the Progress

Schools tell one part of the story.

People tell the rest.

Behind every classroom built, every student taught, and every community sustained were individuals who carried the Sandhills far beyond its borders. Men and women born into bondage who became educators. Pastors who laid both spiritual and institutional foundations. Teachers, ministers, diplomats, and organizers whose influence reached from rural North Carolina to national and international stages.

Some founded churches that doubled as schools. Some established institutions of higher learning. Some carried the voice of Black America across oceans at a time when freedom at home was still contested. Their names do not always appear in textbooks, but their work reshaped communities and opened doors for generations to come.

The next series turns its focus to these lives.

Series 4 - Echoes in Action will spotlight individuals from the Sandhills whose courage, intellect, faith, and service extended the fight for education, dignity, and opportunity locally, nationally, and globally. Their stories remind us that history is not only built in buildings, but carried in people.