Visit Project Project Details
South Carolina passed its first permanent sales tax in 1951 to build new African American high schools. The state wanted to preserve racial segregation, so it made an effort to provide "separate but equal" schools. While the effort was unsuccessful, the school equalization program built new black high schools and upgraded elementary schools in places that never had solid school buildings for their black children.
This website serves as the only place with a list of equalization schools built during this time period, as the archival materials documenting these schools was lost. The website provides a history of the equalization school program, the list of known schools, links to photographs, and a detailed bibliography of sources. New schools are continually added to the website.
Subjects or Themes
African American, Civil Rights, Modern History, South Carolina--History, United States--History
Project Language(s)
English
Time Period
Geographic Location
Project Categories
Content Type
Text, Teacher Resources, Crowdsourcing, Images
Target Audience(s)
Creators
Rebekah Dobrasko
Year(s)
2008-present
Host Institution / Affiliation / Project Location
Rebekah Dobrasko, personal website
Software Employed
Labor and Support
This website began in 2008 as a way to publish Rebekah Dobrasko's thesis on the equalization schools program. It started with a very short list of known equalization schools, and continued to grow as more people began finding the website and adding information to the list. Dobrasko also continually added more content to the website, including lists of places to find information about equalization schools in other states, information about getting an equalization school listed in the National Register of Historic Places, or information about raising money to preserve an equalization school. As Dobrasko finds more information online and from contacts, she adds the content to the website. Dobrasko created a page on the website to also document her research into the L.C. Anderson High School in Austin, TX, a black equalization school. Recently, the website became part of the African American Civil Rights Network. There is also a section of teacher resources on the topic of the website and associated lawsuit.
Each year, Dobrasko pays for the hosting fees of the website on GoDaddy.com and pays for a professional version of Weebly. The website is designed through Weebly.
Project Cost
