418 North Mason Street
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Last updated: March 25, 204
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Directions from Mary Fairfax Home to site 12:
- Make a left onto E Gay St
- Make the right into the parking lot
- Site 12 was here in the Roses Discount Store parking lot
The Effinger Street School was built in 1882. Also known as Harrisonburg Colored School, the new school for African American students stood on the southwest end of Effinger Street. It was a four-room brick schoolhouse with three grades based on reading level and provided night school for adults. Educators taught traditional subjects to all students. The school added economics, music, and industrial arts in the later years when grade levels were also implemented. Effinger had extracurricular activities such as a choir and sports. The school was full of children eager to learn and teachers dedicated to their students' success. Many students remember the dedication and kindness shown to them by their teachers and the fun times they spent with their peers.
Effinger became a locus in the black community in the northeast end of Harrisonburg. It was a school and community engagement center. Constructed at a time when government institutions withheld the same funding, attention, and resources to black schools as they did to white ones, the staff and students of Effinger worked hard to create an atmosphere of learning, exploration, and friendship.
After almost 60 years, Effinger Street School was closed in 1937 and torn down. The lot where the school once stood is now part of a shopping center that cut off Effinger Street in the 1960s due to R4 Urban Renewal projects. In 1939, a new school, Lucy F. Simms School, was established. It was named after community leader and former teacher Lucy F. Simms of Effinger, who taught there for nearly 50 years.
Effinger became a locus in the black community in the northeast end of Harrisonburg. It was a school and community engagement center. Constructed at a time when government institutions withheld the same funding, attention, and resources to black schools as they did to white ones, the staff and students of Effinger worked hard to create an atmosphere of learning, exploration, and friendship.
After almost 60 years, Effinger Street School was closed in 1937 and torn down. The lot where the school once stood is now part of a shopping center that cut off Effinger Street in the 1960s due to R4 Urban Renewal projects. In 1939, a new school, Lucy F. Simms School, was established. It was named after community leader and former teacher Lucy F. Simms of Effinger, who taught there for nearly 50 years.
References
“Celebrating Simms: The Story of the Lucy F. Simms School,” James Madison University & the Shenandoah Black Heritage Center in association with Billo Harper, accessed February 27, 2024, https://omeka.lib.jmu.edu/simms/celebrating-simms-exhibit.
Dale E. MacAllister, Lucy Frances Simms, From Slavery to Reverend Public Service (Lot’s Wife Publishing, 2020).
“Celebrating Simms: The Story of the Lucy F. Simms School,” James Madison University & the Shenandoah Black Heritage Center in association with Billo Harper, accessed February 27, 2024, https://omeka.lib.jmu.edu/simms/celebrating-simms-exhibit.
Dale E. MacAllister, Lucy Frances Simms, From Slavery to Reverend Public Service (Lot’s Wife Publishing, 2020).