The "Little School" in Jacksonville

The "Little School" in Jacksonville. Shelby County. , Operating from as early as 1924 to 1939, the first public school for Black children in Montevallo stood on this corner. Known affectionately as the "Little School," the two-room school was built with funds raised by the African American community and held in trust by "the Colored people of the Town of Montevallo." The teacher, Anna Peoples, was paid $45 a month by the Shelby County Board of Education. Peoples and her assistant, Anna Mae Nunn relocated to the newly opened Almont Negro Elementary School in 1939. The "Little School" then served as a community center for the surrounding black community, then known as Jacksonville. In 1952, the school's trustees John Dubose, Amos Nix, A.H. Frierson, Jesse E. Peoples, Tom Billingsley, David Nunn and W.M. Pitts, transferred the property to Oscar C. and Mary Brazier Mink Cunningham. They converted the abandoned schoolhouse into a family dwelling. The building then became the home of their daughter, Onnie Dell Fluker, who was a former student at the "Little School.", Onnie Dell Fluker, educator and historian, taught elementary school children in Shelby County for over 30 years. She was educated in the Shelby County school system, including the "Little School,” and earned degrees at Alabama State University and the University of Montevallo. In 1998, at age 80, she wrote a brief history about the area schools during the 1920s and 1930s entitled "Schools for Blacks in Shelby County." The work details the acts of kindness and sacrifice on the part of the teachers, administrators, bus drivers, families, and community members who came together to give African American children a chance for an education. Fluker exemplified the strength and determination of a generation of Black teachers who worked tirelessly during an era of racial separation, and after, to create an uplifting legacy for the generations to follow.