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Chronology
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1865-1866 - A convalescing Union army soldier began
teaching former slaves in Marion, Alabama, how to read and write. Research
leads one to believe that he may have been a member of a Minnesota
regiment. |
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1866 - On May 17, 1866 nine black men gathered for the
purpose of considering a school to help freedmen gain a common school
education. |
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1867 - Lincoln School was incorporated on July 18,
1867. |
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1868 - The trustees of Lincoln School agreed to have the
American Missionary Association take over the school on September 10. The AMA
would run it for a period of ten years. |
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1869 - A new frame structure was dedicated on April 10,
1869. The building cost $4,200 and was considered to be as fine as "many
schools in the North." The first Congregational Church services were held
in the building before the church was erected about a year later.
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1868-1874 - This was a period of considerable internecine
squabbling as to whether the AMA should continue to run the school. State
Senator Alexander Curtis, a former slave and a Baptist, played an adversarial
role against the AMA. Rev. T. C. Steward became the first principal. He was
sometimes called "Soap Eye" Steward, and reviled by local Whites as a
radical. |
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1874-1887 - Lincoln School operated as a public institution
- as The State Normal School for Colored Students or "Lincoln Normal
University." G. N. Card appears to have been the first principal. For most
of the period when Lincoln was a public institution, it was headed by William
B. Patterson. The AMA continued to operate the lower school. |
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1886 - A serious riot broke out in December between white
Howard University cadets and Lincoln Normal School. This riot probably resulted
in the torching of the main building on the Lincoln campus early in
1887. |
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1887 - The state relocated the State Normal School to
Montgomery over pronounced objections form Booker T. Washington. |
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1887-1896 - Lincoln School hobbled along in great
difficulty and impoverishment under AMA auspices without a recitations
building. |
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1896 - The energetic and visionary Mary Elizabeth Phillips
arrived form Talledega College to take over the decaying Lincoln School with
150 students. |
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1902 - Livingston Hall was constructed. It was the first
brick building on the Lincoln School campus. |
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1909-1926 - Van Wagenen, Douglass, Ranney, and Woolworth
Halls were constructed during this period. THe campus was wired with
electricity in 1917. Woolworth was the first building erected with the use of
an architect. A junior college curriculum was added in 1926. |
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1927 - Lincoln Normal School had 596 students. Ms. Phillips
died. Her brother, Lloyd Phillips took over the principalship for one year.
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1929 - Ms. Esther Nichols became principal in 1929, and the
junior college department closed in the early 1930s. |
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1930-1932 - For a brief period, Lincoln Normal School was
known officially as the Lincoln Normal Industrial School, according to a
graduate in the class of 1930. An early Lincoln School Alumni Association was
formed, primarily to assist in raising funds for the Mary Elizabeth Phillips
Memorial - a free standing auditorium. |
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1935 - ms Nichols was succeeded by Ms. Ruth
Morton. |
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1937 - Rev. W. Adelbert Redfield replaced Ms. Morton as
principal. Tuition plummeted to fifty cents a semester in the depths of the
depression. |
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1938 - Wilfred Gamble, a native Irishman, became principal
of Lincoln School, the original name (Normal was dropped). |
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1939-1941 - With considerable fanfare, the new Phillips
Memorial Auditorium was dedicated in 1939. By 1941 tuition rates soared to
$4.50 a semester. |
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1943 - The Lincoln School faculty became all black in the
fall with the Rev. Ernest Smith at the helm. State contributions began to flow
for the school's support. The AMA retained title to the land and buildings, and
continued to make financial contributions. |
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1945 - Ralph Martin became principal and served one year
only. |
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1946 - Charles B. Fancher succeeded Mr. Martin as
principal. |
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1953 - The AMA withdrew all support. |
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1954 - John H. Dickerson became principal of Lincoln
School. |
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1965-1967 - Jimmie Lee Jackson, Class of '59, was fatally
wounded by an Alabama State Trooper during a Civil Rights action in Marion in
1965. The Class of 1943 held its 25th anniversary reunion on the Lincoln campus
in 1967, and recommended organizing a revived alumni association and museum.
The idea took immediately. The time was ripe for such a development. The
buildings on campus that we knew were to be demolished soon. A gymnasium and
home economics building had been added, possibly as a means of helping stave
off school desegregation. |
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1968-1970 - All Lincoln School property was sold to the
state for $62,500. Alumni failed to save the school from demolition by court
order and legal actions. Paine College offered to buy the property and was
refused. |
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1971 - Lincolnites met for the first time in the early
1970s at Fort Wayne, Indiana, with about 400 Lincolnites on hand. The last
graduating class in 1970 was a sixth grade class. |
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1970-1996 - Lincolnite Chapters were organized in several
key cities in the Midwest, and in Los Angeles. Remaining buildings and a
portion of land of the former Lincoln School have been bought with alumni
contributions by the Lincolnite Association. Some of the land was deeded by the
City Council to the Lincolnite Association for one dollar.
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We'll Forget? No, Never! |
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 City of Marion, Alabama
Marion
History |
