The Greater Leesburg Community Redevelopment Agency has approved historic markers to honor post-Civil War efforts to educate African-American children.
Commissioner Bettye Stevens-Coney presented the case for three Historic markers to be erected in Leesburg to memorialize the sites of schools dedicated to educating African-American students in the turbulent years after the Civil War. Stevens-Coney explained to her fellow commissioners that the first school was opened in a building on the Saint Stephen African American Episcopal Church property located at 302 Church St. Reverend S.A. Williams directed the first school.
Stevens-Coney explained that the school moved to several other church locations where the school buildings were burned twice. In 1882, the school moved to a new location at the Mount Olive Progressive Baptist Church on Childs Street where John Morgan Dabney was principal. After that school burned the school was moved several times until a group of concerned citizens led by Catherine Minatee raised $110 and fought for the establishment of the first permanent school building which became the Lake County Training School in 1922.
Commissioner Stevens-Coney requested that the GLCRA erect historic markers at both the Childs Street and Church Street locations as well as erect a pavilion on the site of the Lake County Training School. The GLCRA commissioners passed a resolution to spend up to $7,500 for two memorial markers. The proposed pavilion location is not on city owned property. The commissioners directed the city manager to contact the property owner to see if a land donation for a pavilion would be possible.
