Historic Black School to be Remodeled
- Charles Reams
- Jan 24
- 3 min read
Historic Spartanburg School to be Remodeled
It has been a long time since 88-year-old Bill Worthy attended first grade at the Dean Street School. But memories of the school are fresh in his mind to this day.
“I started right here in this room in first grade,” he told a group of Wofford College students who were getting a tour of the building – the oldest public school structure in the city of Spartanburg and, before desegregation, one of several all-Black schools in the city.
Thanks to a $452,000 earmark approved by the state legislature, the building, now owned by the local chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, will undergo a major renovation.
BILL WORTHY once attended this school. Now $452,000 has been set aside to remodel it.
As chapter president Bernard Wheeler explained to the Wofford students, “We envision this as a center for the community. We want to promote youth programming.”
The opportunity to "secure the building" and solidify its future as a place for young people “is an honor,” Wheeler said. “We have the space, and we’re very fortunate. It’s something that we’re obligated to do.”
Sections of the building were updated and altered over the years – first by Spartanburg County School District 7 and then by the Omega fraternity, which acquired the facility in the early 1990s. Other spaces appear almost untouched since the days it was still operating as a school, more than 50 years ago.
“We want to make one of the classrooms into a place to be observed, to have conversations on what things were like in those times,” Wheeler said.
In Worthy’s days as a student, the children lined up in the hall first thing each morning. The principal would read a Bible verse, and the kids would sing the National Anthem and say a prayer. Then, it was on to class.
“My favorite subject was reading,” he said. “Once I learned to read, I was reading everything that wasn’t nailed down.”
Worthy's elementary school lessons served him well. He went on to college and then a lengthy career as a lab technician in New York City.
Worthy is one of many people whose lives were shaped by the Dean Street School, which opened in 1891 and was eventually renamed the Alexander School.
“It was the first public school built for Black children in Spartanburg,” said Betsy Teter, co-author of “North of Main: Spartanburg's Historic Black Neighborhoods of North Dean Street, Gas Bottom, and Back of the College,” published by Hub City Press.
And, like Worthy, many who attended the school went on to success and influence.
Teter pointed to William N. Jones, who became a leading journalist as an editor of Baltimore's "Afro-American" newspaper.
She added that the Dean Street School was something of a hub for college-educated Black community members who served as teachers. “There weren’t a lot of opportunities for Black citizens to go to college. There was a cluster of very interesting people involved in this school from the very beginning who made an impact throughout the community," Teter said.
South Carolina Rep. Rosalyn Henderson-Myers (D-District 31) proposed the earmark, which was approved by the House Ways and Means Committee.
“I’m excited about it,” she said. “I’m looking forward to it being refurbished so that it can serve the community into the future as it has for so many years in the past.”
Wheeler said work on the building will begin in the coming weeks. Initial priorities include a new roof and flooring as well as lighting and electrical work.
The fraternity is working to secure donations and apply for grants to fund additional renovations, Wheeler said.
