VA-F62 Buckingham Training School

Marker text: BUCKINGHAM TRAINING SCHOOL

One mile southeast stood Buckingham Training School, the first high school in the county for African American students. In 1919 the Rev. Stephen J. Ellis organized the County-Wide League for School Improvement to persuade the Buckingham County School Board to build a secondary school for black students. When this effort failed, Ellis and his supporters raised $3,000 to match a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, established in 1917 to build schools for black students in the rural South. The four-room high school opened in 1924 with Thomas L. Dabney as principal and served the community unti it closed in 1953.