Orchard Park School

Orchard Park School was the segregated school for children in the Black enclave of West Town. At the time Ralph Ellison attended the school there from 1924-1926, it consisted of flimsy wooden buildings with no heat nor running water nor indoor toilets. A more substantial building was built in the 1930s and is now the home of Jesus House.

“I am indeed a product of the Oklahoma City school system. And except for the third grade, when I studied at the old Orchard Park School on Peach Street (now Brauer) and the seventh which found us living in McAlester, Oklahoma, I was a pupil at the old Douglas High School, located then at Walnut and California,” Ellison bluntly pronounced in a letter to Oklahoma City school teacher Betty Cameron in 1972. His short tenure at Orchard Park School was very likely a result of his mother Ida's challenged finances. Biographers speculate that her young family moved in with her dead husband's sister, Lucretia Brown, who lived on Peach Street. As an elementary school student, the young Ralph was described as vacillating between shyness and aggression. In the required courses--English, history, arithmetic, and penmanship. He was never more than an average student.

Callahan, John F.. Conner, Marc C.. The Selected Leaders of Ralph Ellison. New York City, New York. Random House, 2019.

Jackson, Lawrence. Ralph Ellison: The Emergence of Genius. New York City, New York. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002.

Rampersad, Arnold. Ralph Ellison A Biography. New York City, New York. Vintage, 2007.