[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 83 (Friday, May 28, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E971]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   JEFFERSON HIGH SCHOOL 44TH REUNION

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                        HON. JOHN M. SPRATT, JR.

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 27, 2010

  Mr. SPRATT. Madam Speaker, I would like to call attention to the 
gathering in Baltimore, Maryland of alumni from Jefferson High School 
over the weekend of June 5th, 2010 in honor of the class of 1966's 44th 
reunion.
  Although the school officially closed in 1970, Jefferson High School 
got its start in a frame schoolhouse built for African-American 
students in York, South Carolina. From there, Jefferson became a 
Rosenwald school and the town's 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. 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 and made the 
most of their circumstances.
  Instead of gathering to dwell on what was lacking at Jefferson, the 
class of 1966 comes together to remember the teachers and fellow 
students who so impacted 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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