East Side Elementary School – African American History

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Wise and several surrounding counties had few African American citizens. Yet regulations at the time required separate facilities for African Americans. Most African American families in Decatur lived in a neighborhood east of the Fort Worth and Denver Railway tracks. In 1882, they established East Side Elementary School, which was the only school for African American students in Wise County. The original building was a one-room frame structure built near the residence of a Mrs. Missouri Brown. Initially the facility also served as a church. It had a pot-bellied stove that the boys gathered wood for from the nearby creek. A water well was abandoned in the 1930s when it was discovered to be contaminated with oil. East Side Elementary School often inherited discarded furnishings and textbooks from Decatur’s white schools. Students who completed eighth grade had to travel to Fort Worth’s I.M. Terrell High School (45 miles) or Denton’s Fred Moore High School (30 miles) to continue their education. In 1954, the school was replaced by a two-classroom brick building and the old frame building was used as a band hall at Decatur High School. Later, the former school served as a barn and then was moved back to its historic neighborhood. East Side Elementary School operated until segregation ended in 1965 and all students attended the same schools. Little documentation exists for Decatur’s African American community. The stories of East Side Elementary School serve as reminders of the struggles and triumphs of a different time in our nation’s past. (2013)