African American Schools in Warren County, KY
Start Year : 1800
End Year : 1964
One of the earliest schools for slaves in Kentucky was established by Peter Tardiveau (d.1817), a friend and fellow Revolutionary War veteran of Robert E. Craddock. The school was located in Warren County, KY, around 1800 for the slaves of Robert E. Craddock [see NKAA entry Willis Russell]. One of the first schools for the freemen was established between 1866-1870 in Bowling Green with support from the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands [see NKAA entry Freedmen Schools]. The school teacher was run out of town. During this same time period, a school was held within the Stoney Point Missionary Baptist Church which was established in 1866 [see NKAA entry Stoney Point]. The school was moved in 1908 to a newly built school house in Stoney Point, and the school continued to serve the community for about 20 more years before it was closed and the children were bused to the Smith Grove School. By 1895, the Simmons Memorial College was in operation, headed by Robert Mitchell [see NKAA entry American Baptist Home Missionary Schools]. In 1902 a school was opened in the Colored Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Bowling Green, KY. The school was later moved into a building on State Street and named Bowling Green Academy. Other communities with colored schools was Sunnyside, Freeport, and Oakland [see NKAA entry African American Communities in Warren County, KY]. Reverend Robert Mitchell ran a private school for ministers, it was located in Bowling Green [source: Rev. Robert Mitchell in Lexington Herald, 10/08/1926, p.16]. In the 1930s, a report completed by Kathryn S. Coleman lists twelve colored schools in Warren County, along with the enrollment numbers, and the number of teachers per school. The title of the report is "Public Schools," and on pp.10-11 is the section titled "Warren County, Colored Public Schools" - - [source: Kentucky Education Collection, Series 1, Box 25, 0000UA129, File: Warren County, at the University of Kentucky Special Collections]. Within the Shake Rag District in Bowling Green was the State Street High School [see NKAA entry Shake Rag]. The schools in Warren County began to integrate in 1964 [source: George Esters interviews (High Street School) within the Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky Oral History Project, a Kentucky Historical Society website].

• Peter Tardiveau School on Craddock Plantation
• Freedmen School
• Stoney Point Missionary Baptist Church School
• Smith Grove School
• Simmons Memorial College (Baptist)
• Bowling Green Academy (Presbyterian)
• Loving Union School (in Sunnyside)
• Woodland School (in Freeport)
• Kepley School (in Oakland)
• Oakland School
• State Street High School
• High Street School
• Bristow School
• Cosby School (in Alvaton)
• Rockfield School
• Woodburn School
• Salem School (in Rockfield)
• Dellafield (in Bowling Green)
• Robert Mitchell School for Ministers

Subjects: Communities, Education and Educators, Grade Schools & High Schools in Kentucky, African American Schools in Kentucky (Counties A-Z)
Geographic Region: Warren County, Kentucky