Wytheville Training School Students
Classrooms, bus, and front lawn of school
In 1865, following the Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau
joined with numerous Northern church and civic leaders to successfully encourage teachers to travel to the South to educate newly freed slaves. Such was the case in 1867 in Wytheville, Virginia, where the Freedmen's Bureau rented four rooms below a Tazewell Street printing office and established a church and school for former African-American slaves. At the same time, the Freedmen's Bureau encouraged the construction of another building, at the corner of Fifth and Franklin Streets, to take the place of the first school.
In 1883, two Wytheville groups, trustees of both the Evansham School District and the Franklin Street Methodist Episcopal Church, purchased the Freedmen's school.
To meet the needs of Wytheville's growing African-American population, the new leadership erected a larger school on the site, known today as the Wytheville Training School.
Within the next two years, Wytheville's African-American community decided to construct a church next door to the new school. As workers built the new Franklin Street Methodist Episcopal Church, African-American citizens used the school as an education center, as well as a site for weddings, socials, funerals, and other occasions.
Later named the Wytheville Training School, the facility welcomed African-American students in the Wytheville area and was a key institution for educating African-Americans in Southwest Virginia for more than 80 years.
Professor Richard Henry Scott, Jr.
Was a circuit educator teaching at several localities, Max Meadows, Ivanhoe, Cripple Creek and the Henley community.