African American Schools in Greenup County, KY
One of the earliest known colored schools in Greenup County, KY, was in session in 1866, according to the Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of Kentucky [see NKAA entry African American Schools, 1866]. The first colored school districts in Greenup County were established in 1874, per capita funding for the students came about in 1875, and in 1876 the city of Greenup had 1 school district with 73 students, and in Fulton there were 2 school districts with 54 students, all according to The History of Education in Greenup County, Kentucky by Benjamin F. Kidwell, pp.45 & 62-63. The school teachers were hired from up north, and were consider unprepared for teaching in the colored schools. By 1891, there was a school in Wurtland, and the two school districts in Fulton no longer existed. During the 1895-1897 school terms, there were two colored schools in Greenup County with one teacher at each school, and the schools had an average attendance of 37-38 students, according to the Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1895-97, pp.400-403. The Wurtland School was merged into the Greenup School in 1911 [source: Kidwell, pp.158-160]. The Greenup and Wurtland colored schools had had an all time high of 51 students in 1891, and by 1928, when there was only the Greenup Colored School, there were 27 students. The decrease in students was said to be due to Negro families leaving the area for work in the mines in Ohio and West Virginia. The Greenup Colored School was referred to as School Number A, and during the 1928-29 school term, there was one teacher and 57 students [source: Kidwell, p.159]. In 1930, Martin W. Nelson was the school janitor [source: U.S. Federal Census]. In 1936, Sallie Churchill was the school teacher in the Greenup Colored School [source: Kentucky Negro Educational Association Journal, October-November, 1935, v.6, no.1, p.43]. There was not a high school for Negro children in Greenup County. Greenup High School for whites was first to be listed as integrated in the Kentucky Public School Directory, 1956-57, p.429.
- Colored School (1866)
- Greenup School
- Fulton Schools (2)
- Wurtland School
- Lynn School [source: Kentucky School Directory, 1961-62, p.857]