Allen School remembered for generations of Black graduates
State historical marker dedicated to influential Buncombe County institution
Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
October 22, 2023
The N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources unveil an N.C. Historical Marker, Oct. 21, in downtown Asheville. The sign commemorates the Allen School, which offered college preparatory courses for Black women for nearly a century. Photo by Fred McCormick
Just blocks from a busy stretch of sidewalk, where scores of onlookers gathered, Oct. 21, an educational institution unlike any other in the mountains prepared generations of young Black students for college.
At the foot of Beaucatcher Mountain, Reverend Lewis M. Pease, and his wife Ann Pinney Pease, established the humble Industrial School on College Street, which embarked on its mission to educate the young children of recently emancipated enslaved residents of Western N.C. Realizing the true needs of the population it served, what would later became the Allen School welcomed 200 children and adults in 1887, its first year under the leadership of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society.
The institution’s legacy, which endures in its many surviving graduates, has now been recognized by the State of N.C., which unveiled a historical marker commemorating the Allen School in front of the Buncombe County Register of Deeds building.
Black students from communities across the state were educated in downtown Asheville, blocks from the county courthouse in what was emerging as a thriving destination for a growing number of White settlers. By the early 20th century, school leaders shifted the school’s mission to preparing young African American women for college.
The earliest support for the school, established in a former livery stable, was multi-racial, according to the research compiled by Montreat resident Mary Standaert and Allen graduates Mary Othella Burnette, who applied for the N.C. Highway Historical Marker in 2021.
“It was a long vetting process, which required us to submit proof of its significance beyond Asheville,” Standaert said. “We submitted 10 or 12 articles supporting that.”
Operating the fully integrated Allen School was a coordinated effort between Northern Methodist-Episcopalians and Quakers. Black and White teachers resided in the integrated boarding school in the heart of a segregated South.
Despite racial turmoil in the mid 20th century, the Allen School produced notable students and graduates, before closing its doors in 1974.
Former Allen School students, often referred to as “Allenites,” gather, Oct. 21, in downtown Asheville, where an N.C. Highway Historical Marker commemorating the college preparatory school was unveiled. Photo courtesy of Paul King
A young musical prodigy from Tryon named Eunice Waymon, who would go on to become civil rights activist and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Nina Simone, was a graduate of the Allen School class of 1950. Dr. Christine Mann Darden, who in 2019 was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for her work researching supersonic flight for NASA, was the valedictorian in 1959.
Burnette, a Black Mountain native who authored Lige of the Black Walnut Tree: Groing up Black in Southern Appalachia in 2020, graduated from the school in 1949.
“Allen set high horizons for all of us. I was determined to get a college education,” she said in an email. “I accomplished that goal and earned the M. A. in English. Through the aspiration gained at Allen, I was privileged to more than 30 years of college and high school teaching of English.”
Deputy Secretary of the N.C. Office of Archives & History Dr. Darin Waters, a native of Asheville, was “tremendously proud” to introduce the historical marker.
“My family, as many families here, have a connection to Allen School,” he said. “My grandmother went to school here, as did my aunt.”
Applicants for an N.C. Highway Historical Marker, according to Ansley Herring Wegner, former administrator of the program that operates under the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, must meet a “high bar.”
“This program was established in 1935, and it has operated jointly with the (N.C. Department of Transportation) the whole time,” Herring Wegner said. “There are more than 1,600 markers in the state, and at least one in every county. Getting a historical marker is not an easy task, because we receive hundreds of applications every year.”
A committee of 10 history professors from N.C. colleges and universities evaluate the subjects with statewide historical significance.
“We erect these markers so that each of us might have a better understanding of ourselves, our neighbors, communities and state,” Herring Wegner said. “If you don’t know the history of a place, you don’t really know the place. And, if you don’t know the place, it’s hard to really care about the place.”
Asheville native Dr. Darin Waters, the deputy secretary of the N.C. Office of Archives & History, speaks to onlookers, Oct. 21, as an N.C. Highway Historical Marker dedicated to the Allen School was unveiled on College Street. Photo by Fred McCormick
The historical marker will share the story of the Allen School with all who pass by, she added.
Ann Miller Woodford, an award-winning historian and activist who was one of at least eight Allenites to attend the dedication of the marker, spoke about her experience in a reception hosted by Explore Asheville, which operates in a building that once housed the school. The event was attended by Black Mountain Town Council Members Pam King and Alice Berry
“I was a country girl from the beautiful mountain hinterlands of Andrews, N.C. When I graduated from eighth grade, there was nowhere to go to receive a high school diploma in my county or community because of segregation,” she said. “I’m grateful that Allen High School was here to provide an excellent education for me. I am blessed to have come from the cove of Happy Top in Andrews, to the metropolis of Asheville. Because of the excellent college preparatory education I received at Allen High School, I could attend college and now to be an artist, author and community development leader.”
The historical marker will provide a permanent reminder of an institution that offered hope to young Black women who persevered through the Jim Crow South to establish lasting legacies.
“I think this is a remarkable part of history that hasn’t been told, or understood enough,” Standaert said. “It’s something that needs to be remembered, not only because of how unusual it was, but because of how much it meant to those who attended the Allen School.”