We Tell Their Stories
These are the stories of former African slaves in America and their descendants. They inspire us today to overcome barriers and accomplish what seems impossible.
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These are the stories of former African slaves in America and their descendants. They inspire us today to overcome barriers and accomplish what seems impossible.
We’re continually working to capture and preserve history from the colored schools in our area.
In 2000, Gloria Godwin and Gracia Muller Miller began talking about a reunion for the Jackson Heights Elementary School, a colored school in Oviedo, FL, during segregation.
Reunion Historian, Judith Smith, began to look for artifacts from that era and struggled to locate any pictures or other information. She put the word out amongst the former students, asking to borrow photographs or other materials related to the colored school.
Immediately, items began to pour in, and the result was a book entitled: “A Written and Pictorial History of the Oviedo Area Colored Schools 1890-1967, Oviedo Elementary, Jackson Heights Elementary, Geneva, Wagner, Kolokee (Snowhill), Gabriella (Jamestown).”
From there, the mission was born, spurred on by the words of Principal S.T. Muller during the dedication of Jackson Heights Elementary School in February,1961:
As I take a backward glance over the past 11 school terms and relive some of the difficulties we encountered in our feeble efforts, without the minimum of essentials needed at times, to plan and effectuate the type of educational progress that the day demanded of us, I almost shudder in disgust.
Since that initial effort to reunite, continuous efforts have been made to tell the story of our triumph among the most challenging circumstances imaginable.
Judith D. Smith, President
Kelley Muller-Smith, Vice President
Gracia Muller Miller, Secretary
Arthur B. Davis, Treasurer
Annie Jackson Gavin, Assistant Treasurer