First Brick School for African Americans in North Carolina

Originally referred to as the “ Red Schoolhouse”, New Bern’s first public school for African Americans was established in the early 1870s.  When fire destroyed the initial wood-framed building in 1905, then principal John Thomas Barber waged a successful campaign to replace it in 1907 with the state’s first brick African

1916 yearbook The Planet, published by the West Street Graded School in New Bern, N.C. Frederick C. Douglass Papers (#323), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.

 American school. West Street Graded School was a noted landmark in New Bern until its destruction by fire in 1969.

Quite interesting and shown here is one of the school’s early surviving yearbooks, “The Planet” from 1916 with an image of John Thomas Barber.

An image of John Thomas Barber from the 1916 yearbook The Planet. Frederick C. Douglass Papers (#323), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA.

This item derives from the Frederick C. Douglass Papers, located in Joyner Library’s East Carolina Manuscript Collection, and is made available digitally through East Carolina University Digital Collections.