The Bel Air Colored School

This schoolhouse was completed in 1924 and became the home of Bel Air's high school for African American students in 1935. This building is the last remaining building in the city that is connected to the era of segregation, and it is now used as a county office. Stephen Moore was the principal of the former high school and shared the centrality of its role for Black students, as its creation meant that area families no longer had to send their children to Baltimore or Delaware to live with extended family just to provide a chance at a high school education. The school was closed in the 1950s after the construction of Havre De Grace and central consolidated schools.

The school was partly funded by the Rosenwald Foundation and partly funded by locally-raised matching funds. When the school opened, Stephen Moore was the only teacher. According to the Harford County architectural survey file, the state of Maryland spent $67.61 per pupil for white students and $48.01 per pupil for Black students in the 1930s. This economic inequality, along with the injustice of segregation and the lack of opportunities for African American graduates led to the efforts of the NAACP to use legal strategies to challenge segregation, including an effort to secure equal pay for teachers in the state of Maryland and efforts to end segregation altogether.

The construction of the Bel Air Colored School provided generations of African Americans with more opportunities for education. Former student Geneva Pope was interviewed by the Baltimore Sun in 1993 and reported that she and other students were only given books after they had been removed from white schools. While the white students received new books, Black students not only had to deal with out-of-date resources, but they also had to repair the aging books. As Pope recalled, this process began with erasing profanities and racial slurs that white students had left in their books, knowing their ultimate destination. Pope also had this to say "in spite of it all we were winners".

Larew, Marilynn. HA-1413, Maryland State Archives. February 12th 2013. Accessed May 7th 2020. https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/stagsere/se1/se5/015000/015000/015022/pdf/msa_se5_15022.pdf.

Anderson, David. Harford County's segregated high schools held their last graduations 50 years ago, The Baltimore Sun. June 8th 2015. Accessed May 7th 2020. https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/harford/aegis/ph-ag-last-consolidated-schools-class-0603-20150608-story.html.

Karin Remesch, C. W. (1993, Jul 25). 'In spite of it all, we were winners': Graduates recall segregated schools. The Sun (1837-1994) Retrieved from https://ezproxy.harford.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/2122691552?accountid=11292