City of W-S honors the legacy of a former Black elementary school, Black principal with new historic marker

Featured photo: Former Brown Elementary School students as well as descendants of Robert Washington Brown stand next to the new historic marker. (photo by Sayaka Matsuoka)

As a child, Daniel Jenkins Jr. remembers walking to school from the Cleveland “projects” — otherwise known as the Cleveland Avenue area — in the northeast part of Winston-Salem through rain, snow and mud. It didn’t matter what the weather was like outside. Back then, students walked.

“My friends and myself, we laughed and cut up along the way,” Jenkins recalls.

He looks on as a few clouds in the sky roll along behind him, the reminiscence bringing a smile to his face.

“It was a brick school, and you could always smell Merita Bakery that used to be right up there on Liberty Street around the corner,” he says. “You could smell the cakes, bread.”

“Honey buns,” adds Gail Couthen, who stands nearby.

Both Jenkins and Couthen attended Brown Elementary School in the mid 1960s, when it stood at the corner of Highland Avenue and 12^th Street and served as a Black-only school. The building had stood there for generations since it first opened in the early 1900s as the Woodland Avenue School when it was just a one-story wooden building. It closed in 1984 after successful pushes for desegregation within schools. Afterwards, the building was used by Shiloh Baptist Church as a daycare until the property was sold this time to the Housing Authority of Winston-Salem. But in late 2016, a fire destroyed most of the former school, causing it to be demolished.

On Thursday morning, more than 60 years later, the two stood near where they had once sat in classrooms, this time to witness the unveiling of a new historic marker commemorating their old school.

Despite the cold temperatures, a few dozen people had gathered for the morning’s event to witness the unveiling of the sign. Among them included about a half-dozen former students like Couthen and Jenkins. 

“The best part of my life was making friends with my classmates,” Couthen recalls. “And those teachers didn’t put up with no mess.” 

One teacher in particular, Robert Washington Brown, served as the school’s principal starting in 1914, when the wooden building was converted into a two-story brick structure to fit more students. He served the school for 30 years. In 1941, after Brown passed away, the school was renamed the Robert Washington Brown Elementary School, or the Brown Elementary School, for short, in his honor.

In addition to being a passionate yet stern educator, Brown had been a pillar in the Black community, serving as an advisor to Clarence Woodland of the Safe Bus Company and as the founding partner of Winston Mutual Life Insurance Co.

And on this morning, several of Brown’s direct descendants huddles around the base of the marker, lifting their faces up at the sign as the fabric is pulled and the sign is revealed. Three generations of women including Teresa Brown, his granddaughter; Maria Alves, his great granddaughter; Deborah Spurlock, his great granddaughter; Sheryl Spurlock, his great granddaughter; and Jessica Anderson, his great-great granddaughter posed for a photo.

“It fills me up with joy,” Brown says after the unveiling. “I didn’t know him, but he knew me. It makes me tear up that they honored him like that. He was a brilliant man.”

Next to Brown, Deborah Spurlock echoes her relative’s sentiments.

“It’s an honor,” she says, about the city’s recognition of both the school and her ancestor’s accomplishments. “To be a descendant makes me feel so good. I hope that I can pursue his legacy and continue to serve others as he did.”

In addition to honoring Brown, many of the speakers at Thursday’s event remembered educators who once taught at the elementary school.

“Mrs. Hotchfield was everybody’s first grade teacher, and she’s still living today,” Couthen recalled during her remarks. “I think she’s in her nineties, and she’s still living today.”

All six of her siblings attended Brown Elementary School, Couthen tells TCB. And it’s not just her personal memories that are being preserved with the installation of the historic marker. It’s a mark of pride for an area that is still undergoing change.

Looking around on Thursday morning, no sign that the school had ever been there remains, save for the new metal marker. Instead, 81 new, mixed-income housing units have been built and stand in the space where the elementary school once existed. Their name? The Brown School Lofts at Legacy Heights.

According to Samuel Hunter, the assistant director of neighborhood services for Winston-Salem, the site was chosen for the first phase of the city’s Choice Neighborhood Initiative. As one of four communities that was chosen for the federal program, the city will be able to build new affordable housing in five separate phases, all in areas located in northeast Winston-Salem. The first phase at the Brown School Lofts was completed earlier this year.

When the city first began planning on building out the 81 units, they discovered the history of the school and its cultural significance. That’s when Hunter took it upon himself to do more research and apply for the historic marker.

“I thought it was important to commemorate the history of the site there,” Hunter tells TCB. 

Councilmember Annettee Scippio, who attended the school when it was still called Woodland Avenue School, reflected on the importance of preserving the history of Black areas in the city during her remarks.

“To recognize the school is very special in the hearts of those who knew what was here in this space, on this soil,” Scippio said. “To recognize the people who gave so much during times when we had so little is very, very special…. Because it is true. So much of our legacy was closed, sold, torn down, destroyed because of urban renewal.”

To combat the loss of history, Scippio encouraged others in the community to submit their own stories and legacies to the city’s African-American Heritage Initiative.

“We need your memories,” she said.

The city’s historic commission has been installing markers like the one unveiled today since 2002 when former city councilmember Jocelyn Johnson, pushed for ways to preserve underrepresented history in the city. 

Every year, the city approves two new markers while the county approves one.

“People call it history on a stick,” says Michelle McCullough, the historic resource officer for the city and the county. “It’s a great way to preserve the legacy of places in our history and it’s a great way to keep that community uniqueness alive.”

As a former student, even though the school is no longer there, the memory and legacy of the tight-knit community is alive, and that’s what’s important, Couthen says.

“It’s a blessing to see what they have done in this area,” Couthen says. “And because we want our kids to know how we came up back in the day and see what was here in this place and how we grew up, you know? The important thing is our kids being able to see where we came from and what has developed now.”

Visit the historic marker at 1125 Highland Ave. in Winston-Salem.

In full, the text for the marker reads as follows: “Woodland Avenue Elementary School for African American students opened here in 1910. A two-story brick building replaced the wooden one in 1914. Woodland Avenue was renamed Brown Elementary School in 1941 to honor longtime principal Robert Washington Brown. Professor Brown was an educator, civic and religious leader, and a cofounder of Winston Mutual Life Insurance Co. The school was integrated in August 1971 when students were first bused between Winston-Salem and Clemmons/Lewisville. It closed in 1984. Shiloh Baptist Church and St. Peter’s Church bought the school and operated a daycare center on the site. After a major fire in 2016, the school was demolished.”