Hampton Colored School

National Register Listing

Street Address:

W. Holly St. E. of jct. with Hoover St., Hampton, SC (Hampton County)

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NRHP Nomination

Record Number:

S10817725004

Description and Narrative:

The Hampton Colored School is significant both as an intact example of twentieth century vernacular school architecture and for its association with black education in Hampton from 1929 to 1947. The building is a one-story, front-gable, rectangular, frame building with clapboard siding, tin roof, exposed rafters, and a brick pier foundation. Ervin Johnson, a local black carpenter, built the school in 1929. It replaced the first black school in Hampton, a two-room building which had operated since 1898. The school board bought a one-acre site for the new school in 1927, and two years later Johnson, along with C.H. Hazel and Hallie Youmans, bought an additional three acres and donated them to the school. Johnson built the two-room (later three-room) school with volunteers from Hampton’s black community. When the school opened for the 1929-1930 school year, it served students from first through eighth grade. Initially funds were so scarce that the school only operated from October to March. Donations from the black community eventually made it possible to operate the school for a full academic year. It remained the only black school in Hampton until 1947, when Hampton Colored High School was built and the Hampton Colored School became the lunchroom for the high school. Listed in the National Register February 28, 1991.

Period of Significance:

1929

Level of Significance:

Local

Area of Significance:

Architecture;Education;Ethnic Heritage: Black

National Register Determination:

listed

Date of Certification:

February 28 1991

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