Community Corner

A Glimpse Into Past: Segregation at the Sykesville Colored School

Former students of the Historic Sykesville Colored Schoolhouse will speak about their experiences this Sunday.

It's the early 1900s and Warren Dorsey, now 91, was a young boy. He had friends in Sykesville where he lived that jumped on the bus and went to school with no problem. 

But for Dorsey, it was a little more complicated. He is African-American and grew up during a time of a segregated public school system in Carroll County. 

On Sunday, Feb. 19, he will join two other classmates in a discussion open to the public for Black History Month on what it was like to attend the Colored Schoolhouse in Sykesville, which was open from 1904 until 1939. 

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"Our whole focus of the talk is around how the school came to be," said Dorsey. "It was as a result of some people who stood up for the lack of any opportunities for us, and that's what prompted the school system to put it there." 

The school itself, according to Dorsey, was "not fancy." The building housed one classroom, with the children learning from books discarded from other schools in the area, but that wasn't the big issue. He said the most challenging aspect of attending the school in Sykesville, and later, the segregated high school in Westminster, was transportation. 

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"It was up to the kids and their families to find transportation to school," said Dorsey. "The school system didn't supply any transportation for their African-American students. The parents had to raise enough money on their own to purchase a bus, with the students donating 50 cents per week to ride the bus." 

Dorsey, who attended the school through fifth grade, said that he is grateful for the educational foundation the school passed onto him at a young age. 

"It was the launching point for any young students there to have an opportunity to learn. Even though it wasn't a grand thing for us, it was a beginning and some of us used that as a launching point," said Dorsey, who added that his talk will cover the decisions of both the local and federal government that led to the opening of the school. 

The event takes place Sunday, Feb. 19, at 1:30 p.m. at the Sykesville Historic Colored Schoolhouse. Find more information here


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