Untiring efforts! Hopes for the future! Glorious prospects! These were some of the exclamations that appear to have characterized the dreams of the early African Americans who sought to develp an educational system for themselves and their heirs in the City of Salisbury in the latter part of the 19th Century.

     According to Mrs. Virginia Pharr Wilson, Price High School historian and a graduate of the Class of 1948, there appears to have been "no known documents prior to 1880 of school operations for blacks in Salisbury."

     Indeed, records unearthed by Mrs. Wilson revealed the "rise of the educational curtain in the fall of 1880 with a graded school in Dixonville -- which was an old six-room dwelling." Professor A.L. Summer was at the head of that institution with two teachers. From 1880 to 1911 only seven grades were taught.

 

     Their struggle continued in inadequate facilities, but with hopes for better days ahead! Through untiring efforts and a refusal to fear the unknown, these early educators had faith that their efforts would eventually be rewarded. Their dreams began to be fulfilled in September 1910 when 35 students arrived who were to be members of the Class of 1919.