[Posted Jan. 23, 2008]

Franklin Businessman Seeks To Restore Former Schools

By Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter
New Journal & Guide
 

CORRECTION
"Franklin Businessman Seeks To Restore Former Schools"
New Journal and Guide: Jan. 24-30, 2008

Mayor Jim Councill of Franklin wrote us: "I was surprised to read the comment attributed to me about 'earmarked land where the Hayden Building sits for a new high school in the future'. NEVER did I say that or imply such. The City has purchased a site near the current high school for a possible site for a future high school. There is not enough acreage at Hayden to even think about a high school there. Please issue a correction as this has created confusion for citizens who are working on this project." New Journal and Guide offers an apology for any confusion our story may have created.

       A Franklin businessman has launched an effort to restore and convert two abandoned historic buildings into a school of fine arts. The facilities once served as schools for Blacks during Jim Crow segregation.
      Gregory J. McLemore has asked the city council to help restore the old Hayden Building and an adjacent structure which was built by the Rosenwald Foundation back in the 30s and served as am elementary school for Blacks.

Gregory J. McLemore at the old Hayden School

      McLemore has submitted a petition to the city council  to  register  public opinion on the need  to restore the buildings as an educational facility.
On January 15  McLemore  persuaded the  Franklin City Council to delay a vote  on a plan already on the table to convert the Hayden Building into housing for senior citizens and a Head Start facility for the Southeastern Tidewater Opportunity Program, Inc. (STOP, Inc.). Council members agreed and decided to hold a work session on the matter on January 28, prior to its regular public meeting.
  McLemore said before the council reconvenes in a week, he will have submitted a proposal for his vision of restoring and using both facilities as part of his plans.
      According to McLemore, both buildings are on the National Historic Registry. They once served as the Rosenwald School. The Hayden Building was used a storage facility after it ceased being a public school for children in the city’s south end 10 years ago.
      McLemore said he will propose that the  two buildings be converted into a performing arts school similar to the Governor’s School of Performing Arts in Norfolk.  Not only would the facility prepare students in music, dance and other art forms, but it would be a facility where students could learn etiquette and social skills.
      “That is the community’s vision of  what the facility should be used for,” said McLemore.

      “The city has to haul students all the way to Norfolk to provide them  access to advanced art studies.  If they invest in these buildings they can save them and have an educational facility right here in Franklin.”
        McLemore said one stumbling block is securing funding. He said the city could devote some funding and additional monies could be secured from the state since both are historic structures.

      “And then there  is money from private sources,” he said.  “In fact,  I see private sources providing most of the funding we need in the long run to keep the facility going.”
      McLemore was behind the acquisition of funds to install a computer lab  in the south end’s  Dr. Martin Luther King Community Center which sets across Oak Street from  the Hayden Building and the near by Rosenwald School structures.
      “The buildings are structurally sound,” said McLemore, who says he  has not made an estimate of what it would cost to restore them.
      McLemore said that while collecting the 200 signatures of the initial petition he submitted to the city council last week, “I had people from all walks of life in Franklin sign my petition and show acceptance of what  I am seeking to do.”
      “People of all colors and  those who do not live in the south end of the city, after I explained to them what I am trying to do, supported saving the old buildings,” said McLemore. ”If we get enough support those buildings could be the Julliard of the South. It would really be a cultural and educational uplift  of the city. It would also contribute to bettering the lives of the families  and children not only region wide, but those  who in live on the city’s south end because they will have a building they could be proud of for some time to come.”
      Long time south side resident and activist Thomas Councill, (no relation to the mayor), said that he supports any  plan to preserve and restore the Rosenwald building and the Hayden Building.  He said that McLemore’s proposal “would add to the value of the buildings and provide an asset to this region that the city does not have.”
      “First we must work to preserve the legacy of Mrs. Hayden.  There are so many options for saving those buildings and I think McLemore’s  plan has a lot of merit,”  Councill said.          The Hayden building was named in honor of  Della I. Hayden.  Born in 1892  in Tarboro, N.C., Hayden, the daughter of a slave, was a leading advocate of building facilities to educate African American children in rural North Carolina and Virginia. She graduated from Hampton Institute in the 1920s.
She was the principal at the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (Virginia State University now). She helped to raise money for a “Normal School” for Blacks in  (Southampton County) Franklin. Mrs. Hayden died before the building in Franklin was named in her honor in 1957.
    Franklin Mayor James P. Councill. III said McLemore’s proposal was heard by council members for the first time at last week’s session. He said a recent survey of  Franklin’s buildings by the state historic society revealed the importance of the Rosenwald school, which some have called a “ historic jewel”. It is owned by the Apostolic Faith Church which is also on Oak Street.  He said that he does not know what plans the church has for the old building.
     Mayor Councill said the city had earmarked the land where the Hayden Building sits for a new high school which is projected to be built  in the future.
      “We  have to sit down and talk about this issue,” said Mayor Councill. “There are so many competing interests. There are also plans for using the Hayden Building for recreation purposes, housing and commercial use.  All are good ideas, but the problem may be money. The city has to look at all the plans and the cost and decide in the best interest of the community.”

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