The Scarboro Parade is pictured above. (Submitted photo)
The Scarboro Community Alumni Association 2018 Reunion is Saturday.
The activities include a parade at 9 a.m., a Fun Day from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., a Meet and Greet from 6-10 p.m., and a Banquet from 6-10 p.m. See the flyer below for more information.
Submitted image
Here are press releases and more information about the 2018 Reunion.
Connecting the Dots: Scarboro School
Scarboro residents migrated to Oak Ridge for a better way of life, said Louise Mills and Kelly King in a 2011 interview. “Going to school was important if we wanted to be somebody,” Mills said. Education was always paramount in the Scarboro Community, and that is why it was essential to extend education from the elementary schools to high school.
According to research and interviews with Scarboro residents, younger black school children attended schools at Scarboro School and bused to Knoxville and other nearby cities that had black high schools during the 1940s.
Through concerns by Scarboro residents and a group of white residents, primarily educators and research staff such as Robert Coveyou, a retired mathematician at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, recommendations were made to the Oak Ridge Superintendent of Schools and the federal government that provisions be made for a Scarboro High School. Both the schools and the federal government agreed, and teachers and staff were in place when in 1950 some 40 black students were enrolled, according to research by the late Mary Steele and living Scarboro High School graduate, Kelly King. The first high school commencement was held in May 1951. Graduating were Nancy Cooper, Ben Phipps, and Willie Ann Southall. Some of the graduates were employed by Y-12, K-25, or Oak Ridge National Laboratory (once known as X-10).
When asked what the graduating ceremony was like, Louise Mills remarked: “Scarboro School was like a family school, the whole community was there…yes, we threw our hats after, we threw them up just like today.”
As time went on in the 1950s, the educational facet of the Scarboro community reached greater heights as several black youth would enter schools outside the Scarboro community. In 1955, Scarboro residents—at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (then the Atomic Energy Commission) request—were the first to desegregate an all-white public school system in the South. This was a major advance for the nation that took exceptional courage and leadership by the federal government. It occurred with little fanfare in September 1955 compared to other places.
The Scarboro Community Alumni Association will honor those persons who attended Scarboro High School and also those who made an unprecedented journey from their segregated neighborhood to a integrated educational system.
Please join us on July 28 at 6 p.m. at the Elks Lodge, 684 Emory Valley Road, for the Scholarship/Recognition banquet, “Connecting the Dots.”
Contact Julie Fletcher at (615) 823-0571 for additional information.
Note: If you plan to be a vendor at the July 28, 2018 Fun Day Event, please provide your table and chairs.
Information from organizers:
Scarboro was the only area that blacks could live during the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge. The Manhattan Project was a top-secret federal program to build the world’s first atomic weapons during World War II. Oak Ridge was the main production site for the Manhattan Project.
The Saturday 9 a.m. parade route is:
Leave from Spurgeon Chapel Church, Benedict Avenue, turn left onto Benedict Avenue, passing Benett Lane and Bettis Lane on left; staying on Benedict Avenue,passing Carver Avenue on right; passing Bethune Circle and Spellman Avenue on left, turning left onto Dillard passing Fisk Avenue, turning right onto Hampton, passing part of Spellman on right, passing Oak Valley Baptist Church passing Scarboro School site, right on Wilberforce, right onto Fisk, left onto Dillard, right onto Wilberforce, right onto Carver ending at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church parking lot area. Most people will stop before Mt. Zion and go straight to Scarboro Community Center on Carver Avenue, where the Fun Day Event will be held. There will be spotters for the side streets from the Scarboro Neighborhood Watch Committee.
Corey Hodge (Submitted photo)
Scarboro Reunion features local and famous author and scholarship recipients
The Scarboro Community Alumni Association will feature Corey Hodge. Corey Hodge is a three-time national award winning author for his debut fiction novel “As the Sun Smiles.” As a full-time worker in a Knoxville inner-city school, one of Corey’s primary fuels to his ambition is further showing students of these inner-city communities not just what they, too, can accomplish at young ages, but can exceed with confidence in their own separate and collective excellences. As the orchestrator of his own annually distributed scholarship for post-secondary achievers, Legends of Knoxville, Corey continues, day by day, with intentions on further showing the greatness able to come from within the black diaspora despite global perceptions! Every mountain can be moved when faith is present!
Corey will be selling and signing his dystopian fiction novel, “As the Sun Smiles,” for $10 at this Saturday’s Scarboro Reunion Fun Day Festival at 10 a.m. at the Scarboro Community Center, 148 Carver Avenue. While entertainment, Corey has placed a metacognitive aspect within the novel. Readers often don’t fully comprehend the covert effects that our society has influenced our thinking as they read the novel. Considering this, Corey has included a particular and subtle aspect in his book and simply tells readers to question, before reading the book, what is “strength?” Prior to the Fun Day Event, some 40 participants will amaze the public with the 9 a.m. parade that starts from Spurgeon Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church and travel through Benedict Avenue, Dillard Avenue, Hampton Road, Wilberforce, Fisk Avenue, and Carver Avenue. Ebony Capshaw and Kevin Steen will serve as the grand marshals.
The 6 p.m. Awards/Recognition Banquet will highlight this years scholarship recipients, Adarius Cox and Amara Howard, along with the 2018 Spirit of Community Award Recipients. A special presentation will be given by Geoffrey L. Beasusoleil, manager of the NNSA Production Office, National Nuclear Security Adminisration, U.S. Department of Energy.
We look forward to the public participating in this event that commemorates Oak Ridge’s 75th Anniversary and also on the heels of the 63rd anniversary of that landmark school integration.
For more information contact Rose Weaver at (865) 924-2987.
Scholarship Recipient: Amara Howard
Amara is a member of Little Leaf Missionary Baptist Church.
While at Oak Ridge High School, she was active on track team and Spanish Honors Society.
She graduated from high school with honors with a 3.7 GPA.
She will be attending Middle Tennessee State University for health science with a focus in nursing and exercise science.
Adarius Cox (Submitted photo)
Scholarship Recipient: Adarius Cox
Adarius is a member of Mt. Zion Baptist Church.
While at Oak Ridge High School, he was active on the football team, where he received several awards and graduated with honors.
He was a member of SECME, where he received an internship from Weaver Consultant LLC, where he researched the life of Hal Williams.
He displayed his research two years ago at the Secret City Festival.
He coached the Oak Ridge Boys Club with the Ten and Under League.
He also worked as a Student Aide at the Scarboro Learning Center.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
Most news stories on Oak Ridge Today are free, brought to you by Oak Ridge Today with help from our advertisers, contributors, and subscribers. This is a free story. Thank you to our advertisers, contributors, and subscribers.
Do you appreciate this story or our work in general? If so, please consider a monthly subscription to Oak Ridge Today. See our Subscribe page here. Thank you for reading Oak Ridge Today.
Copyright 2018 Oak Ridge Today. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
