In 1830-31 North Carolina passed laws that made it illegal to teach enslaved Black people to learn how to read and write. Two years after the ending of slavery, Lewis Hege, Alexander Volger (Gates), and Robert Waugh, Black lay leaders in the African Moravian Church in Salem, led the effort to build the first school for free Blacks in Salem. In Winston, the Depot Street School was opened in 1887 and became the first public school for Blacks.
The Colored Baptist Orphanage opened around 1905 to serve homeless children in the Belview area of Winston-Salem. The name was changed to the Memorial Industrial School in the early 1920s. In 1928 the school moved eight miles north and operated until 1971, providing students with academic as well as agricultural and domestic education.
St. Benedict Grammar School
In September 1950 under the direction of the Franciscan Sisters, St. Benedict Grammar School was opened with 116 students. By 1958, 250 students were enrolled. The Kyle Heights Apartments is on the former site of St. Anne’s Academy and Convent and the St. Benedict Grammar School became the Franciscans Day Care Center.
*(Skyland and Fairview were not historically Black schools)