York County · Marker 46-27
Emmett Scott School
Emmett Scott Recreation Center, 801 Crawford Rd., Rock Hill
Front inscription
This school, founded in 1920, was the first public school for blacks in Rock Hill. Named for Emmett J. Scott (1873-1957), a prominent educator who was then secretary of Howard University, Emmett Scott School included all twelve grades until 1956 and was a junior high and high school from 1956 until South Carolina schools were desegregated in 1970. The original two-story frame school, built in 1920, was demolished in 1952.
Reverse inscription
This property is owned by the City of Rock Hill and has been a neighborhood recreation center since the school closed in 1970. Seven principals served the Emmett Scott School during its fifty-year existence: Frank H. Neal 1920-1924; L. B. Moore 1924-1938; Ralph W. McGirt 1938-1959; W. H. Witherspoon 1959-1967; George Land 1967; Richard Boulware 1968; Samuel Foster 1969-1970.