South Carolina
South Carolina Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, Colored Department (Spartanburg)
- Established 1883
- Integrated with the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind, 1967
In 1873, the directors of the South Carolina Institute for the Education of the Deaf and Blind began to equip a building for the education of African-American children who were blind. However, when J.K. Jillson, the Radical Republican state superintendent of education, learned of the plans, he was incensed. He ordered the school to show no distinction between black and white students: "whites and blacks should sleep in the same beds, eat at the same table, and be taught in the same classes." The following instructions were delivered to School Superintendent N.F. Walker on September 17, 1873.
"First, colored pupils must not only be admitted into the Institutions on Application, but an earnest and faithful effort must be made to induct such pupils to apply for admission."
"Second, such pupils, when admitted, must be domiciled into the same building, must eat at the same table, and be taught in the same classrooms and by the same teachers and must receive the same attention, care, and consideration as white pupils."1
Walker and all his teachers immediately resigned. When the state could not find replacements, Jillson closed the school. In 1876, the school reopened under the same rules with one exception—the establishment of separate departments, in separate buildings, for white and black students. Not until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, did the South Carolina school make plans to combine its white and black schools. By August 1966, it was completely integrated.
- JoAnn Michell Brasington, The South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, 1849-2000, 2000, p. 4.