[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 130 (Monday, October 11, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1956]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                JEFFERSON HIGH SCHOOL REUNION--YORK, SC

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JOHN M. SPRATT, JR.

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                       Saturday, October 9, 2004

  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, on the weekend before Labor Day, some 400 
alumni of Jefferson High School gathered for their first reunion since 
Jefferson closed more than 30 years ago.
  Jefferson got its start in a frame school house built for African-
American students next to Wesley United Methodist Church on West 
Jefferson Street in York, South Carolina. From there, Jefferson 
graduated to a Rosenwald school and became the African-American public 
school in a racially segregated system. Although the system was called 
``separate but equal,'' Jefferson never had facilities or teaching 
materials equal to its counterparts, the white schools that I attended. 
Used books were passed on from white students, dated and worn. The 
school district built a new high school for white students in 1950, but 
left black students to make the best of their old one. The students, 
teachers and administrators at Jefferson did just that. They made the 
most of their circumstances. The students who came back for this 
reunion did not dwell on what they lacked at Jefferson High School. 
They saluted teachers who took a personal interest, believed in them, 
and encouraged them to excel. They recalled their formidable teams in 
football and basketball and the musical talent they produced. They 
recognized the values instilled in them for a lifetime.
  When the alumni sat down for a banquet the last night of their 
reunion, the pride they felt at being ``Jeffersonians'' was easily felt 
and well-founded. Among the 400 attending the dinner, there were 
graduates who had risen to the highest levels of the Civil Service and 
become department heads in state government; Ph.D.'s in the sciences 
and liberal arts; college professors; school teachers; successful 
entrepreneurs; attorneys; and many more who had distinguished 
themselves. The banquet speaker, Roberta Wright, symbolized their 
success. She finished Jefferson and went on to become a Phi Beta Kappa 
graduate of Fisk University and the University of Michigan School of 
Law. She made a stirring speech, challenging everyone to do more for 
the common good.
  With the onset of integration in the early 1970s, Jefferson High 
School came to an end. But the 3-day Reunion made clear that Jefferson 
lives on in the lives it made better. Hundreds of the alumni attending 
attested to better, more productive lives because of what they learned 
at Jefferson under teachers who cared, encouraged, and challenged.

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