The box of red and white pinback buttons was pushed under a table near the door to the auction house, but their message was loud and clear: “Stop Forced Busing.” It was not the only…
Category: School
As I flipped through the pages, the book reminded me of a high school yearbook, but this one had original – not reprinted – photos. In fact, the only photos in the book were of…
Questions from a 1930s “Negro History” contest
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and School
The bound sheets of paper had faded with age and the text had been typed with a typewriter whose ribbon needed changing. That told me a lot about the time period of this document, along…
Selling what’s left of a shuttered elementary school
Posted in Architecture/Buildings, Auction, and School
The woman was a solitary figure in a long hallway that 10 minutes earlier had been filled with a clump of people moving mechanically from one classroom to another. In this quiet time, she seemed…
Heavily used slate pencils in a metal case
Posted in Black history, and School
The small metal box had rusted on the top and gave no hint of what was inside. Opening the box, I found an even smaller and narrower box with an inscription that was partially rubbed off: “Young America…
The big red soda machine stood against a wall in the middle of the long hallway of the school building, looking out the double doors to a wide yard and just beyond, a main highway.…