One year ago today, on March 27, 2018, I heard a story on NPR about the death of Linda Brown, who had been at the center of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down segregation in public schools. Brown was 9 years old in 1951, when her father tried to enroll her in an all-white elementary school in Topeka, Kansas.
Listening to Brown’s story made me think of the old Attucks school, which was a segregated black high school in Hopkinsville and later became an integrated middle school.
So a year ago on this day, I drove to Attucks at First and Vine streets and shot photographs to illustrate the beautiful old school’s awful state of disrepair. I went back today and shot photos again. It looks as it did a year ago. Like a building rotting from the inside out.
Attucks has been vacant for about 25 years, and despite a big push starting in the early 1990s to renovate the school and save it for a new purpose, the building continues to decline and at some point will be too far gone to save.
Work was done several years ago, but the project fell short. State and federal grants awarded for renovation work at Attucks were processed through Christian Fiscal Court (not the city of Hopkinsville). The grants totaled about $1.4 million. Much of the bidding and oversight was managed by the Planning Commission (as it was known then; it’s now called Community and Development Services). The work included asbestos abatement, a new roof and other structural details. But there wasn’t enough money to do additional work needed to refurbish the interior of the 1916 school building and the 1957 gymnasium — which was the last big piece of the project needed to finally get the building in shape for some use again.
Those are the broad details of the renovation work. It’s been several years since I wrote about Attucks, but I do have a good memory on the main points. It is my understanding that an Attucks alumni group still owns the property. I was covering the school system for the New Era in the early 1990s when the school board granted the deed to the alumni group. Board member Paul Morton (who is deceased) was instrumental in getting the deed transferred.
Last year more than 200 people commented on the Facebook post containing the photos, and more than 110 people shared the post. Dozens of people also commented on those shared posts.
I went back to Attucks today because I think it is worth remembering the response from a year ago and it is worth asking again if the community thinks there is something to be done other than what’s been done now for more than two decades. Which is nothing.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
