For decades, the Attucks Building was the only place where Black students could get an education in Christian County. Now, a local group is working to renovate the more-than-a-century-old school and turn it into a community center.
Men 2 Be – a Hopkinsville nonprofit and youth mentorship program – acquired the shuttered structure from the Crispus Attucks Community Association last year.
LaDessa Lewis is one of Men 2 Be’s cofounders. She said her organization presented their plans to repair the building and turn it into a community center when they negotiated its purchase.
“What we want to do at the Attucks High School is for it to be a place for people to come…to get resources and different things like that. And not only the resources, but maybe education,” Lewis said.
Designed by John T. Waller – the Kentucky architect also responsible for Hopkinsville’s Alhambra Theatre, the city’s now-defunct Carnegie Library and the Ninth Street Fire Station, among others – the school opened its doors in 1916. The school was the first built for African-American students in Christian County. It was named after Crispus Attucks, the Black man who was the first American to die in the Revolutionary War.
After operating as a high school for Black students for a little more than five decades, it became an integrated middle school in 1967. It would continue serving in that capacity until it shut down in 1988.
Allisa Keller is the executive director at Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County. She said that many of the school’s alumni still live in the area and view the place as a symbol of perseverance through a time of segregation and Jim Crow laws.
“Those who are still with us are very connected to the building and just to the legacy that that school left behind,” Keller said. “They lived through the desegregation of the school system. And I think that it holds a special place in their hearts and minds too, as still a community anchor and a community icon, and as a place of importance, a place of excellence for our Black community.”
Keller said, over the decades, members of Hopkinsville’s Black community have worked to protect its legacy and preserve the site.
“It was really funded by the local Black community as a site to educate their children. There were some pieces of the building that were incorporated from a previous building that had been torn down,” Keller said. “Clay Street School – which was essentially an upper level high school for the white community – that was dismantled about the same time that this one was being built.”
Lewis said the group aims to primarily provide resources and programs that serve the young people of Christian County, though she hopes that, ultimately, it’s a place for everyone.
“Our first priority are the young people of this community. Because if you do not have young people, you do not have a community,” she said. “We would love to revamp Attucks so that this can be a pillar of the community.”
Men 2 Be is still evaluating the structural integrity of the Attucks Building and hopes to launch fundraising efforts to support its renovation soon. In the meantime, Lewis already has some ideas to get community money behind the project, including a gospel benefit concert in April.
Moving forward, Men 2 Be plans to share updates about the progress of the Attucks renovation on their Facebook page and website.
This story is republished with permission from WKMS. Read the original.
