Fairhope, Alabama
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Hope Community's plan.
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TO BE LEASED OUT
The city council unanimously voted to purchase of the old Alternative/Anna T. Jeanes School property from the Baldwin County School Board for $100; an additional $10K was appropriated to handle all closing costs (Kopesky and Britt, Llc.)
A portion of the property is to be leased to the non-profit Hope Community to be used as a community center complex per their previously-announced plans in a manner similar to FEEF's lease of the city's K-1 property on Church Street several years ago for their ongoing Pelicans Nest project.
Councilman Burrell called it a "good deal" for the city and alluded to the requirement it be used only for "public uses like playgrounds"; councilman Martin added "we did carve out ... what they would establish ... when and if we voted for the lease to occur ... a footprint."
Mayor Sullivan alluded to a "second lease" as well -- and said she had "met with that organization ... we have a map ... as part of that lease .. you will see it in January."
Burrell added that everything they had in mind (a second step) would meet the "public use" requirement of the purchase contract.
PROPERTY HISTORY
Jeanes
was a Quaker philanthropist. In 1907, she endowed $1 million dollars to
create “The Jeanes Fund” to provide better educational opportunities
for black children in the segregated schools of the South. The funds
were designated for “Jeanes Supervisors.”
These trained supervisors were the most successful black teachers in a community and
they spent part of their time helping teachers improve their work and their schools.
The
program was carried out under the trusteeship of Booker T. Washington,
President of Tuskegee Institute and Hollis B. Frissell, President of
Hampton Institute in Virginia.
In 1913, a community school was
built on the present-day site on Twin Beach Road. It was the only school
in the nation bearing the Anna T. Jeanes’ name. The four rooms in the
concrete and cinderblock building remain today.
A second building
for grades 1-3 was built on Bell Lane in 1922-23 with an addition in
1927. Financial contributions to construct the three-room school came
from the black community, Baldwin County, and the Julius Rosenwald Fund.
Rosenwald, the President of Sears and Roebuck, helped finance the
construction of schools for black children all over the country.
In 1947, Carrie E. Beaucham Smith and Randolph Smith sold ten acres to the State of Alabama for “public school purposes for Anna T. Jeanes School, Baldwin County, State of Alabama.”
Alvin E. Boykin served as the principal for 23 years, beginning in 1947
until 1970. Prior to 1947 J.A. Kitchens, Hillard P. Smith, Roosevelt
Anderson, Sr. and Vera Denton Herman served as principals of the
schools.
In 1954, the Rosenwald building burned and grades 1-3
were relocated to the Knights of Pleasure Lodge on Twin Beech Road. A
brick addition which served those grades was added around 1956-1957 to
the school’s original concrete and cinderblock building.
The
school served as a feeder school for Baldwin County Training School, in
Daphne, Alabama where students continued their studies through the 12th
grade. County training schools filled a void in black education that
would normally have been filled by the public high school.
In 1970, with the desegregation of public schools in Alabama, the Anna T. Jeanes school was named Fairhope Intermediate School.
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