1. Name (indicate preferred name)

street & number 850 Hungerford Drive __ not for publication

city, town Rockville ___vicinity of 8^th congressional district

state Maryland county Montgomery

X_building(s)

4. Owner of Property (give names and mailing addresses of all owners.)

name Board of Education of Montgomery County

street & number 850 Hungerford Drive telephone no.: 301-279-3381

city, town Rockville state and zip code MD 20850

courthouse, registry of deeds, etc. Montgomery County Judicial Center liber 1191 folio 449

street & number 50 Courthouse Square city, town state Rockville , Maryland

title None

city, town state

7. Description Survey No.

The George Washington Carver High School and Junior College/Carver Educational Services Center building is roughly centered on a 20-acre parcel fronting on Hungerford Drive. The structure evinces elements of the International Style in its horizontality, simple streamlined design, flat roofs, and ribbons of steel casement windows. The school is a brick structure of multiple levels to match the topography, which slopes downhill from south to north. Although there have been numerous additions to the building, the main, east façade reads much as it did when the facility opened in 1951. The first addition occurred in 1952, immediately after construction. Carver School, built as part of an educational complex for black students, shares a campus with Rock Terrace, formerly an elementary school for black students, and is located just northeast of the historic black community of Haiti.

The main, east façade of the building has six sections, which present a rambling grouping as viewed from the circular grassy flagpole area in front. From south to north (left to right), there are a two story four bay section, a long one story section with a ribbon of 32 windows, a tall brick wall about 8' wide with decorative brick "quoining", a one story five bay section, a three story windowless entrance section, and lastly a two story block with boarded-up windows, glass brick squares, "quoining", and affixed letters reading "Carver Educational Services Center". The entrance section (labeled "east entrance") has a row of five doors with a sidewalk leading to eight wide concrete steps that are flanked by short stone-faced 3' high walls. There is a flat canopy over the sidewalk and steps. A freestanding historic information plaque is near the entrance doors.

The distance between Hungerford Drive (formerly Frederick Road) and the main, east facade is about 200 yards. The portion of land closest to Hungerford Drive is taken up by a grassy area; the other half, a large asphalt-paved parking lot, abuts the school.

The north facade faces Mannakee Street. To the north and west, set back from the main façade, is a three bay by fourteen bay block which holds the Auditorium and Board meeting room. As the land drops off sharply to the street, it goes from two to three stories in height. To the east are a two story five bay taller section with two double-door entrances and a two bay shorter section. The sections are connected by a narrow one story, three part nondescript addition that has three double steel north-facing doors.

The west facade is 22 bays wide. There are three entrances, with the major one (labeled "west entrance") toward the south end of the building. The windows are mostly grouped in twos, threes, and sixes.

The south facade has 11 bays and two entrances. The land slopes downward east to west, with two stories at the east end and three at the west. Again, the windows are in groupings.

There is minimal landscaping around the building, and parking on all four sides. To the north are Mannakee Street and the Rockville campus of Montgomery College. To the south are a residential townhouse subdivision built on the site of a former outdoor movie theater, a cemetery dating back to the 1880s which is maintained by local residents, and expansive ballfields which were part of the original school grounds. Just beyond is the historic black community of Haiti on Martin’s Lane. To the southwest can be seen the rear of Rock Terrace Elementary School, opened in 1951 as one of Montgomery County’s last segregated public schools.

8. Significance Survey No. M: 26-

George Washington Carver High School and Junior College represents more than 200 years of deep emotional and cultural meaning to Montgomery County’s African-American community. Carver continued the first and only high school in Montgomery County for Negro students and was the first, last, and only institution for post-secondary Negro education in Montgomery County’s racially segregated educational system. It was created through the persistent efforts of the Negro community of Montgomery County, led by noted Maryland educator Dr. Parlett L. Moore, who served as principal of Lincoln High School and subsequently as principal and dean of Carver. This school was the first in Montgomery County to be named after a Black individual and the first name to be selected by Black students. As the only County institution for hundreds of Negro secondary and post-secondary students, Carver played a vital role in forging lasting social and professional bonds. The building has been in continuous educational use for almost 50 years.

Carver High School is more than a structure of bricks and mortar; it is a symbol of triumph over educational injustice, a struggle for equal opportunity over segregation’s legal and social obstacles. It is a culmination of the persistence, values, and efforts of the previous generations of Negro citizens on behalf of their children and future generations. The building is an icon of the coming of age educationally, socially, and politically of Montgomery County’s Negro community.

Carver High School identifies the end of an era of substandard facilities for the Negro student and the beginning of optimism. Carver’s curriculum provided students with the skills and education to earn a living upon graduation, or to continue with higher education. These opportunities were otherwise unavailable in Montgomery County. Carver’s role in the Black community is beyond estimation and is often undervalued by others. It stands as a reminder of the struggle and of the achievements of those who passed through its halls.

After desegregation in 1954, Carver Junior College was merged with Montgomery Junior College, then located in Takoma Park. However, Black students still attended classes only at Carver in Rockville. The name George Washington Carver was abandoned about 1961 and the facility, now called Carver Educational Services Center, was converted to its present use as the headquarters of the Montgomery County Public Schools.

Montgomery County established a public education system for its colored citizens in 1872. Attempting to implement the State goal of one free school in each election district for colored children between six and twenty years of age, the Board of School Commissioners considered petitions by colored citizens, allocated funds, purchased properties, constructed new schools or reused existing structures, and hired teachers. Rockville Colored Elementary School, located on the west side of the Frederick Road, opened in 1876.

From the start, colored schools and students were short-changed by the Board. Small amounts were levied for construction and maintenance of schools or to rent church buildings. Colored teachers received less than half the salaries of whites, and supplies were meager. Local trustees, often parents, took responsibility for furnishing necessities. Despite the hardships and inequities, Montgomery County's colored population believed in the power of education to bring about a change in their lives.

Colored schools were open 140 days a year (as compared to white schools - 188 days), closing when the small budget was overspent or whenever they fell short of the average attendance requirement. Most of the frame buildings were more or less dilapidated, with non-adjustable desks and insufficient seating, and no musical instruments, cloak rooms, teachers' rooms, or play equipment. Several lacked water, sanitary toilets, and ample maps, charts, and globes. Teachers often served both as principals and as janitors for their schools. They usually purchased additional supplies to supplement the used books and few materials received from the School Board.

The Rockville Colored School burned in 1912 and was rebuilt four years later. The field behind the two story whitewashed frame building with outdoor sanitary facilities was the gathering place each spring for black students from all over the County competing in athletic events and oratorical contests. In 1926, with the aid of a fund sponsored by merchant and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and contributions from the County's black communities, a two-room high school was erected in Rockville next to the elementary school, on the back lot on North Washington Street. The first high school for colored students in Montgomery County, it was a long wooden yellow frame building with two classrooms connected by a small room used as a library and classroom. Colored students traveled by bus, train, and foot from all over the County to take advantage of this opportunity. The high school was used until 1935, when Lincoln opened a mile away in Lincoln Park.

In 1936, Rockville Colored Elementary School was the setting for an historic event. William B. Gibbs, Jr., teacher and principal at the school, brought suit against the Montgomery County Board of Education to correct inequities in the salaries of black and white teachers; on the average, a black teacher's pay was half that of a white with equal qualifications. As Mr. Gibbs had volunteered as a litigant on behalf of all Montgomery County black teachers, the NAACP provided attorneys (one of whom was Thurgood Marshall), and the Maryland Teachers Association and Montgomery County Black Teachers agreed to help support Mr. Gibbs financially should he lose his job as a result of the suit. Six black Rockville homeowners, including two on Martin's Lane, offered to mortgage their homes as collateral. The case was settled out of court, with black teachers' salaries increased the following two years, until they equaled those of whites. The length of the school term was also equalized.

Montgomery County’s black parents continued to push for improved educational opportunities, bolstered by a 1941 Brookings Institution study which noted unacceptable conditions and recommended changes. In 1948, the Citizens Council for Mutual improvement, made up of concerned black citizens such as Alphonzo Lee, Romeo Horad, and Edward Johnson, made a survey of County schools and facilities. They reported conditions "deplorable" and unsafe. Rockville businessmen Jesse (Tom) Meads (deliveryman), Claude (Toby) Prather (poolroom operator), George (Mr. T.) Johnson (restauranteur), and Robert (Mike) Snowden (undertaker), among others, appeared before the Board of Education and labeled the colored schools "dumps." The Board responded with additions for Rockville Elementary (with consideration of a new facility), a quonset hut remodeled for use as Lincoln High's gymnasium-auditorium, and plans for the new George Washington Carver Senior High School and Junior College in Rockville.

Aside from parental requests, the Board of Education could no longer ignore increasing enrollment demands for a new facility. On September 20, 1948, the Board purchased Parcel "A" in the Rockville subdivision of West End Park from Frank Ward and Porter Ward (former proprietors of Wire Hardware store) and F. Barnard Welsh and their wives. The Board then contracted with architects McLeon & Ferrara to design a "High School for Negro Children" along with an elementary school which would consolidate Quince Orchard, Scotland, Rockville, and Norbeck colored schools into the new Rock Terrace Elementary School.

The land for the new schools was carefully selected. The central location in the seat of County government and proximate to a traditional black community was appropriate for a school system which foresaw no change in the "separate but equal" philosophy upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1896 and which had no plans to construct more than one high school for colored students. Haiti, the adjacent black community, had been incorporated into the City of Rockville in 1949.

George Washington Carver High School and Junior College, located at North Washington Street and Norris Street (now the intersection of Hungerford Drive and Mannakee Street), opened for students in September, 1951. Rock Terrace Colored Elementary School opened at the same time.

The name Carver was selected by the student body of Lincoln High School in a school-wide contest. Carver was the first Montgomery County public school to be named for a black individual, a matter of great pride to the community. George Washington Carver was an eminent African-American scientist who had passed away in 1943.

425 students in grades 10 through 12 from all over Montgomery County attended Carver. Nine bus drivers brought students to Carver; some students spent three to four hours on the bus each day. After-school activities were almost impossible because of transportation logistics. A 12-year educational program began in 1954. Lincoln High School, which previously had served Grades 7-12, was converted in 1951 to a junior high school serving students Grades 7-9. The combined enrollment of Carver and Lincoln in 1951 was approximately 614 students.

The original Carver structure consisted of ten classrooms including a science lab, library, offices, teachers lounge, cafeteria, and band room built at a cost of $428,000. The entrance to the school was on a paved roadway from North Washington Street, and the school parking area consisted of the small lot near the cafeteria. The only other paved areas led to the auto mechanics shop and the driveway for buses at the main (east) entrance.

The new facility also was designed to house Carver Junior College, an accredited two-year degree college for black students organized in 1950. Approximately 125 students attended after-school and Saturday classes in the first session of 1951. The principal of Carver High School, Dr. Parlett L. Moore, also served as dean of the college. Some Carver High School staff members were among the 15 part-time faculty teaching at Carver Junior College. The school operated as a true community center, according to former staff and students. The first Baccalaureate Service of six graduating students of Carver Junior College was held Sunday, May 31, 1953 at the college auditorium.

Carver, Lincoln, and Rock Terrace schooled only black students until integration came to Montgomery County. The Board of Education appointed an Advisory Committee on Integration which devised a complicated system of desegregation, gradually merging white and black students into schools close to home. By 1958 all high schools in the County except Poolesville and Damascus were open to black students, but no white students attended day school at Carver; some night students attended Mr. Fraser’s auto classes. Despite the protests of a number of organizations and individuals, the Board proceeded slowly toward eventual integration in the 1960-61 school year, thus ending 89 years of separate and unequal public education for Montgomery County's black student population.

After desegregation, Carver Junior College was merged with Montgomery Junior College, then located in Takoma Park. However, black students still attended classes only at Carver in Rockville. Rock Terrace was converted to a high school for Special Education students.

Over the years, the Board of Education added to the Carver building and made numerous improvements. The first addition, a two story separate building to the northwest of the original section, housed a large gymnasium and stage on the upper level and, on the lower level, two classrooms and shops for drycleaning, auto mechanics, and woodworking.

When Montgomery County Public Schools took over Carver for its administrative offices in 1960, in an attempt to consolidate personnel, it added two two-level sections, one adjacent to the gymnasium and another on the south end of the original building. Three other additions were made to the facility in 1967, and numerous modifications have been made to individual rooms since that time.

MCPS also changed the name of the facility to the Educational Services Center. Insistent Carver-Lincoln alumni, actively supported by the Montgomery County chapter of the NAACP and black churches in Montgomery County, succeeded in persuading the Board to reinstate the original name in 1983.

Carver School has been in continuous use for educational purposes for nearly fifty years.

A. Drawing, "High School for Negro Students, Rockville, Maryland",

McLeod & Ferrara, architects, 1949

2. Plot plan, "High School for Negro Students, Rockville, Maryland",

   McLeod & Ferrara, architects, 1949?

3. Building Sequence Chart, J. Caprones, "Carver ­ The Building" (1998)
4. Dates of Construction, 1951-1968, J. Caprones, "Carver ­ The Building" (1998)
5. "Alma Mater", from the "Carver Eagle", 1952 (courtesy of Gordon Crutchfield)
6. Gymnasium Auditorium, from the "Carver Eagle", 1953 (courtesy of Harlean Prather)
7. Photograph of 1953 Graduating Class of Carver High School and Junior College,

Courtesy of Gordon Crutchfield, from the Collection of Peerless Rockville

9. Major Bibliographical References Survey No.

Montgomery County Land Records; MHT Historic Sites Surveys; Montgomery County Board of Education minutes & records; J. Caprones, "Carver - The Building", MCPS, 6/98; "Carver Eagle" yearbooks; Recollections of former Carver students; Clarke & Brown, History of the Black Public Schools of Montgomery County, Maryland 1872-1961 (1978).

Acreage of nominated property 20 acres

organization Lincoln Park Civic Association date December 1999

street & number Post Office Box 10252 telephone (301) 762-2545

city or town Rockville state Maryland 20850

MARYLAND HISTORICAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT PLAN DATA

Geographic Organization: III.) Piedmont, Montgomery County, City of Rockville

Chronological/Developmental Period(s): L) Modern Period 1930-Present

Historic Period Themes: 2) Architecture/ Social/ Educational./ Cultural

Resource Type: Building/educational, school/ schoolhouse

Category: Building

Historic Environment: Suburban

Historic Function and Use: Educational

Known Design Source: McLeod & Ferrara Architects, 1949; William N. Denton, 1960 addition

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nina H. Clarke and Lillian B. Brown, History of the Black Public Schools of Montgomery County, Maryland 1872-1961 (New York: Vantage Press, 1978)

E. Guy Jewell, "Schools That Were", Unpublished Manuscript, Montgomery County Historical Society

Sharyn Duffin,"The Pioneer Teacher's Salary Discrepancy Case, Montgomery County, 1936" Unpublished Manuscript

J. Caprones, "Carver - The Building", Montgomery County Public Schools Facilities Division, June, 1998

"Carver Eagle", yearbooks from Carver School, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1957, 1958

Recollections of former Carver students

MHT Historic Site Inventory Forms: Rock Terrace School 26/16/13

Lincoln High School 26/15/3