TAMPA, Fla. — Over the next month, we will be highlighting the impact African Americans have had on the Tampa Bay area. You’ll hear about historical Black figures and places that helped to make the area what it is today.
Fred Hearns, a historian with the Tampa History Center, highlighted Tampa's very first Black school.
“When freedom came to the Black people living here in 1864, one of their priorities after looking for family members was to seek an education,” said Hearns.
He said, at the time, Black people had been forbidden from learning how to read and write.
“So, they wanted to go to school,” Hearns continued. “They especially wanted to send their children to school. The first classes were held in the Hillsborough County Courthouse.”
Hearns said there were people who protested against using taxpayers’ money to educate Black people.
“So, eventually, those people who wanted to make sure that Black people had an education built a schoolhouse. It was named Schoolhouse #2. Schoolhouse #1 was built for white children,” said Hearns.
Schoolhouse #2 opened in 1870 on Harrison Street between Marion and Morgan. There is now a historic marker there that tells the story of Schoolhouse #2.
“A few years after that school opened, it was burned to the ground—probably by people who did not want to see Black children get an education," Hearns said. "But the members of the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, which sat right next to the school, and other people in the community, rebuilt that school."
The Harlem Academy was a place where, for the very first time, Black children could get an education.
The school closed in 1964 after more than nine decades of educating local, Black scholars.
