VOA标准英语2011-- History Saves African-American Schoolho

Hidden History Saves African-American Schoolhouse

When the tiny African-American community on Georgia’s St. Simons Island set out to save its one-room schoolhouse, it didn't realize the building was linked to an historic effort to combat racial discrimination in the early 20th century.
The Harrington School doesn’t look like much. The abandoned building is surrounded by a rusty¹ metal fence. The roof has holes in it, some wooden siding has fallen off, and it badly needs a coat of paint.
The school looked so dilapidated that, two years ago, community leaders and even the local historical society had given up hope it could be saved.
Fond memories
“They said that the building just wasn’t worth saving and you could just look at it and tell it was going to fall any minute, so let’s just tear it down,” says Amy Roberts, who has lived on St. Simons Island all her life and has fond memories of the school.
She attended first grade there in 1953, and remembers lessons in and out of the classroom.
“How many children can say that they went to school and it was out in the yard and they saw a caterpillar² do the cocoon³ thing, and then you waited so many days and then you saw a butterfly.”
Proud history
Harrington was built in 1925 as a one-room schoolhouse for St. Simons’ African-American community, since segregation⁴ laws of the time banned black students from attending school with white children.
Hundreds of the island’s black children went to elementary school at Harrington until 1954, when the Supreme⁵ Court ruled classrooms had to be integrated. Students were transferred to the island’s other, formerly⁶ whites-only, elementary school.
Harrington continued to be used for social activities and a day care center, but by 1970, it was abandoned. The vacant building soon became an eyesore, and developers began to eye the property.
Preserved heritage
Concerned that the school might be torn down, Roberts started the African-American Heritage Coalition⁷ to preserve the island’s heritage.
“If it’s not done, if it’s not saved, then eventually you would not know that we existed here on St. Simons," she says. "Everything of African-American heritage has been torn down.”
In 2009, despite years of effort by the coalition, Harrington was slated⁸ for demolition⁹.
But weeks before demolition, Patty Deveau, a historian who lives St. Simons, took a closer look at the building. She realized the old schoolhouse was part of a bigger piece of history: a massive 1920s philanthropic movement called the Rosenwald Fund.
Surprise discovery
Its purpose, explains Georgia historian Jeanne Cyriaque, was to promote small community schools as a way for African-Americans to get an education.
"At the very core of that movement was the involvement of the community, sympathetic whites, and philanthropy, merging¹⁰ together to do what today we’d call partnerships,” she says.
Julius Rosenwald, the man behind that partnership¹¹, headed the retail¹² giant Sears, Roebuck and Co. In 1915, he donated start-up money to encourage African-American communities to build their own schools.
By the late 1920s, the fund had contributed to more than 5,000 educational buildings in 15 states across the South and one in three rural black children was attending a Rosenwald school.
There’s no record of whether the Harrington School actually was a Rosenwald school, but Cyriaque says its design and community location make it a model of what the fund was trying to do.
“This particular school kind of embodies¹³ to me what was going on with the communities at that time, because in many African-American communities, it was African-American families that gave land for these schools to be built.”
Besides land, African-American communities donated labor¹⁴ and materials, and the county government contributed teachers and money.
Since it was part of both the island’s African-American heritage and the Rosenwald legacy¹⁵, supporters believed it was now doubly important to save the Harrington School.
Restoration plans
The local historical society commissioned preservation¹⁶ architects to evaluate the building. Roberts was surprised by their findings.
“They went through it and they talked about how sound it was; and how, you know, they’d never seen anything like this," she says. "I mean, it was, like, in great shape.”
After that, plans to demolish¹⁷ the building were scrapped¹⁸. And now, architects are developing restoration plans and the community is making suggestions about how the building will be used. Roberts dreams about what the new Harrington School will be like someday.
“It’s gonna be a lot of things. It could be a building that may be a place where school kids can come and visit and find out what life was like in a one-room schoolhouse. It would also let folk know that there were three African communities on St. Simons and talk about those three communities, talk about the Georgia Sea Island Singers and when they got started and where they got started, which was right in the Harrington community. Talk about the family that was the family of carpenters that built most of the houses on St. Simons."
And maybe there will be a caterpillar or two in the front yard for a science lesson.

1 rusty   

adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的

参考例句：

• The lock on the door is rusty and won't open.门上的锁锈住了。
• I haven't practiced my French for months and it's getting rusty.几个月不用，我的法语又荒疏了。

2 caterpillar   

n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫

参考例句：

• A butterfly is produced by metamorphosis from a caterpillar.蝴蝶是由毛虫脱胎变成的。
• A caterpillar must pass through the cocoon stage to become a butterfly.毛毛虫必须经过茧的阶段才能变成蝴蝶。

3 cocoon   

n.茧

参考例句：

• A cocoon is a kind of silk covering made by an insect.蚕茧是由昆虫制造的一种由丝组成的外包层。
• The beautiful butterfly emerged from the cocoon.美丽的蝴蝶自茧中出现。

4 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

5 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

6 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

7 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

8 slated   

用石板瓦盖( slate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Yuki is working up an in-home phonics program slated for Thursdays, and I'm drilling her on English conversation at dinnertime. Yuki每周四还有一次家庭语音课。我在晚餐时训练她的英语口语。
• Bromfield was slated to become U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. 布罗姆菲尔德被提名为美国农业部长。

9 demolition   

n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹

参考例句：

• The church has been threatened with demolition for years. 这座教堂多年来一直面临拆毀的威胁。
• The project required the total demolition of the old bridge. 该项目要求将老桥完全拆毁。

10 merging   

合并（分类）

参考例句：

• Many companies continued to grow by merging with or buying competing firms. 许多公司通过合并或收买竞争对手的公司而不断扩大。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• To sequence by repeated splitting and merging. 用反复分开和合并的方法进行的排序。

11 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

12 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

13 embodies   

v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This document embodies the concern of the government for the deformity. 这个文件体现了政府对残疾人的关怀。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

14 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

15 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

16 preservation   

n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持

参考例句：

• The police are responsible for the preservation of law and order.警察负责维持法律与秩序。
• The picture is in an excellent state of preservation.这幅画保存得极为完好。

17 demolish   

v.拆毁(建筑物等)，推翻(计划、制度等)

参考例句：

• They're going to demolish that old building.他们将拆毁那座旧建筑物。
• He was helping to demolish an underground garage when part of the roof collapsed.他当时正在帮忙拆除一个地下汽车库，屋顶的一部份突然倒塌。

18 scrapped   

废弃(scrap的过去式与过去分词)； 打架

参考例句：

• This machine is so old that it will soon have to be scrapped. 这架机器太旧，快报废了。
• It had been thought that passport controls would be scrapped. 人们曾认为会放开护照管制。