George Washington Carver High School (Carrollton, Georgia)

The Carrollton City School District was established in 1886 and opened the Carrollton Public School a year later. This school served children in the local Carrollton area and expanded to include a school on Maple Street in 1913 and a separate Carrollton High School building on South White Street in 1921. However, the only children allowed to attend these schools were white. School racial segregation was still in existence and African American students were denied admittance into these schools.

The first black school in Carrollton opened on Pearl Street in 1913. However, the original name of this school is unknown. (Retroactively referred to as Pearl Street School) In 1932, using funds raised from a bond issue by the city of Carrollton, along with matching funds from the Rosenwald Fund, the first school for black children that reached past the elementary level (serving grades 1-11) opened under the name Carroll County Training School on the corner of Alabama and King Streets. In 1954, a new building was built for grades 8-12 and was named George Washington Carver High School while the adjacent Carroll County Training School, becoming a feeder elementary school, was renamed "Alabama Street Elementary". Carver had an initial enrollment of around 600, which remained fairly constant until the school closed. In 1963, the school district opened "West Side Elementary" nearby to serve as a feeder school. In 1965, the beginning of integration of Carroll County commenced and a "school choice" plan was implemented, which allowed students to choose which high school to attend regardless of race. Eleven Carver High students, the first in the county's integration history, chose to attend the previously all white Temple High School, but they recall being met with racial harassment and intimidation upon first enrolling. In 1969, Carroll County completed its local integration process; Carver was closed and all students were reassigned to previously all-white high schools. The school reopened as an integrated Alabama Street Elementary with its absorption into the single cluster school system until 1992.[1][2]

Carroll County Training School was the first school in the county to win state championships. With the conversion to Carver High, the Yellow Jackets were the first local school team to win a state title with two state championships and three district titles in the 1950s. The school is also the alma mater to Olympic gold medalist Catherine Hardy Lavender whose team placed first in the 4x4 Women's Relay at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.

In the 1955 and 1956 school years, every black senior at Carver applied for admission to West Georgia College (now the University of West Georgia), and all were denied admission because of their skin color. In 2002, the college apologized, and an anonymous donor created a scholarship fund for the descendants of the students who had been denied admission.[9]