"Piney Grove School: A Rosenwald Legacy"
The Eagles Nest History Club
The Eagles Nest History Club in 1997 produced this video (abbreviated here) for a contest sponsored by NC Museum of History Tar Heel Junior Historians. Directed by their teacher Leslie Rivers at East Union Middle School in Marshville, the students interviewed former students of Union County's segregated schools. (http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit?ns=1&video_id=gr8zxpBHkNo&next=%2Fmy_history)
Leslie Rivers at Anson Middle School (Photo by Autumn Smith)
Inspiring Young Historians
Ms. Rivers was an East Union Middle School teacher who had sponsored a history project that won a state contest. Mrs. Rivers now teaches at Anson Middle School in Wadesboro. She still encourages young historians and hunts for historical structures in Anson County. Rivers’ class at Each Union built a model to scale of Piney Grove School.
A photo of the school taken by Mike Dirks and published in the Enquirer-Journal, May 29, 1996, showed the school frame still standing. A tree was overtaking a wall and light was shining through the roof.
The students’ project won first place in a state Young Historians contest sponsored by the N.C. Museum of History. The model was displayed at the museum for a year and then at the Union County Heritage Room. The children measured the original structure on Ansonville Road, north of Marshville, across from the Piney Grove Baptist Church. They built the model of pine, simulating tongue and groove paneling and tin roofing, according to the carpenter who helped build the model, Michael Rivers (Motte, 1996). Rivers thinks the model is at Piney Grove Baptist Church, 1708 Ansonville Road, northeast of Wingate, past Austin Grove Road.
A photo of the school taken by Mike Dirks and published in the Enquirer-Journal, May 29, 1996, showed the school frame still standing. A tree was overtaking a wall and light was shining through the roof.
The students’ project won first place in a state Young Historians contest sponsored by the N.C. Museum of History. The model was displayed at the museum for a year and then at the Union County Heritage Room. The children measured the original structure on Ansonville Road, north of Marshville, across from the Piney Grove Baptist Church. They built the model of pine, simulating tongue and groove paneling and tin roofing, according to the carpenter who helped build the model, Michael Rivers (Motte, 1996). Rivers thinks the model is at Piney Grove Baptist Church, 1708 Ansonville Road, northeast of Wingate, past Austin Grove Road.
Voices remember segregation
In 1997, Ms. Rivers’ Eagle Nest History Club at East Union Middle School in Marshville produced a documentary on the Rosenwald school in their community. They photographed the the collapsing structure across from Piney Grove church and wrote a script that referenced the Rosenwald Fund for another N.C. Museum of History contest. The students interviewed former students who attended the Piney Grove school before the courts required the Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. In North Carolina, schools remained segregated until after Federal Judge James B. McMillan heard the Swann v. Mecklenburg in 1965. He ordered across-town busing to establish a 30-to-60 percent minority attendance at all public schools. In 1969, the "in due haste" order was made in Swann vs.Charlotte Board of Education (Saxon, 1995).
