Newsletter: August 9, 2024

Saving Historic Carver Campus

In our busy lives, we tend to forget the amazing events that helped define our present.  Did you know that Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall as a young NAACP attorney came to Palm Beach County to solve a pay disparity between Black and white teachers?  And that this decision among others led to the landmark decision of Brown vs Board of Education which ultimately eliminated segregation in Delray schools.

Instrumental in these historic milestones was old Carver High School completed in 1958 and named for George Washington Carver, the famous Black inventor and agronomist who was born a slave but achieved national prominence as an educator, advocate, and scientist. Two earlier versions of Carver were built on Northwest 5th Avenue and Northwest 8th Avenue.  The Carver campus still exists as an icon in the Set located on Southwest 14th Avenue and 3rd Street but is at risk of partial demolition or possibly total demolition.

Thurgood Marshall and Impact on Racial Discrimination Cases

Prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court, Marshall had already made a huge impact on eliminating racial discrimination, bringing national attention to the systemic racism that marred life in Florida. What he accomplished in Delray and other Florida cities became the foundation for a nation-wide pursuit of civil rights. Marshall’s success in Delray continued to motivate him on the Supreme Court profoundly changing society and equity in the United States.

What Marshall is most noted for in Delray was the achievement of equal pay for white and Black teachers. (Charles Stebbins v Palm Beach County School Board) This was an initial step by the NAACP and Marshall to develop a nationwide effort to overturn 1886 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” was constitutional.

Architectural Importance of Historic Carver

There is another reason that Delray citizens should be concerned about saving about Historic Carver.  The school was designed by Gustav Maass the noted Floridian architect who designed the Seaboard Airline Train Station at Atlantic Avenue and I95, Delray’s first national historic preservation site. (Note: the rail station was nearly burned to the ground in 2017 and is now reconstructed but illustrates the fragility of our historic preservation efforts)

Maas is recognized for design of both public and private structures in Delray and around Palm Beach, many of which are designated historic. Maass was the master of many styles including Mediterranean Revival, Art Deco and Mid Century Moderne (the style used for Historic Carver).  His career extended from the 1920s well into the 1950s. A number of his commercial designs populate downtown Delray Beach, including the Boyd Building which is now the site of Deck 84 Restaurant on the IntraCoastal.

Carver and Segregation

Carver was completed in 1958 and for 20 years was a symbol of segregated education in Delray.  For an excellent video history of Carver produced by the Delray Beach Historical Society, please click here https://youtu.be/SILvP94Jo9o?si=LvEap9CuEWCXVKf5.  Carver is a repository of racial history in Delray: built to separate African Americans from European Americans, notable for its achievements despite segregation, and witness to the difficulties of bringing integration to fruition in Delray.  Many older residents, both white and black, have vivid memories of the first years of bringing the races together in our public schools.  Despite the passage of time, not all the memories are happy ones.

Carver’s predecessors (The Delray County Training School and Dade County School #4, Colored) were led by such educational luminaries as Solomon D. Spady, C. Spencer Pompey, and Anthony Holiday recognized by numerous awards and naming of public buildings.  Spady came to Delray Beach at the behest of George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington, the most prominent African Americans of the time.

In recognition of the historic significance of Historic Carver, City officials and passionate individuals in the community, including graduates of Old Carver such as Paula Newman Rocker and Brenda Neal Edwards, have been lobbying for historic preservation of the campus for nearly 10 years.  Both County and State officials have agreed through an exchange of memos. State officials have advocated for Carver to be part of the Black History Trail and the 11 to Save in Florida.

Why Historic Preservation is important

Delray, like many Florida cities that have emerged in the last 50 years, has precious little in the way of historic structures, links to our forebears, or Delray legacies.  It is important for the identity and uniqueness of a community to have physical evidence of where they have come from.  This is particularly true of the African American community as its remembrance and past is often the first historical artifacts to be erased (usually under the heading of “removing blight”).  Fortunately Delray has the Spady Museum, Mount Olive Baptist Church, and the former La France hotel as physical evidence of a thriving African American past and achievement.

Delray is noted for repurposing some historic buildings including Old School Square, CRA offices, the restaurant Dada, and the La France Hotel. Historic Carver should benefit from the same farsighted thinking. Education professionals have long advocated for a vocational high school in Delray. Restoring Historic Carver and repurposing it as a technical or vocational school would be a gift for students who anticipate a career path that doesn’t include college.

New Threat to Campus

However, the Palm Beach County School District is now proposing to remove part of the Carver campus and replace it with a parking lot. We’ve seen this story before (remember Joni Mitchell singing “Paved Paradise and put up a parking lot”).  And then there’s George Santayana’s adage that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.  We want to remember the segregation history in our town not because it was a bright spot but because we don’t want to repeat it.

We still have time.  As citizens of Delray, call, text or write your City Commissioners or attend Commission meetings to stand up against this travesty. And call or write Edwin Ferguson and Erica Whitfield, our elected representatives at the Palm Beach County School District, to stand up for Delray and show the courage to preserve Historic Carver.