African American Schools in Pike County, KY
The colored school in Pike County was established prior to 1875, according to Herbert Woodson Crick in his thesis, History of Education in Pike County, Kentucky, p. 47. The school was located in Pikeville. In the 1890s, Effie Waller Smith was a teacher at the Pikeville Colored School. There were 63 Negro children and one Negro teacher in Pike County in 1890; 83 students in 1910; 87 students in 1920; and 83 students in 1930 [source: Crick, p. 106].
The Pikeville Colored School offered two years of high school. There were four teachers in the county colored schools. William R. Cummings was principal of the Perry A. Cline School in 1938 when he wrote "History of the Perry A. Cline High School," which appeared on p. 49 of the KNEA Journal, vol. 9, no. 1-2.
In 1940, the Negro teachers in Pike County were Edwin Pearson, a grade school teacher in Millard; Albert J. Cummings; Jesse Wyler; and Mary L. Whitefield [source: U.S. Federal Census]. The Perry A. Cline School would become a four-year high school and then close in 1966 when the Pike County schools were fully integrated. Prior to that, the Pikeville College Trg. School was listed as having "white & colored" students in the Kentucky Public School Directory, 1955-56, p. 227. The following year Belfry School was listed as having "white & integrated" students, and three schools listed as integrated: Majestic, Mullins, and Pikeville High School [source: Kentucky Public School Directory, 1956-57, p. 445].
- Perry Cline School
- Pikeville School
- Pike County Schools (4)
- McAndrews School [source: Kentucky School Directory, 1961-62, p. 886]
- Northside High School on Hellier Street, 1929-1932 [source: M. F. Sohn, "The Black Struggle for Education and Learning," Appalachian Heritage, vol. 16, Fall 1987, pp. 35-42]
