Multiple organizations reportedly are supporting efforts to buy the former all-black J.J. Jones High School in Mount Airy and prevent what one supporter calls “the purchase of our history” by an outside entity.
It initially was disclosed that the African-American Historical and Genealogical Society of Surry County was spearheading that effort, which resulted from Surry officials declaring the old campus surplus property in July.
The county government owns the site on Jones School Road and for years has leased it to YVEDDI, an area community action agency that operates a number of agencies there which are collectively part of Jones Family Resource Center.
More groups with ties to the black community also are on board with the effort to buy the former campus, according to updated information from LaShene Lowe, the president of the African-American Historical and Genealogical Society.
These include the local NAACP, the Mount Airy/Surry County Branch of the National Association of University Women and the Visions group.
An organizational meeting was scheduled Thursday afternoon at Jones Family Resource Center for interested persons to discuss how to go about acquiring the old school through major fundraisers or other means, Lowe has said.
J.J. Jones opened in 1936 and said good-bye to its final high school graduating class in 1966 — coinciding with the desegregation of public education locally. The school was named for John Jarvis Jones, a pioneering black educator who moved to Mount Airy in 1914 and built on land donated by a former slave, Bob Dyson.
Although it has not been occupied by students for years, the former campus remains a source of pride for area African-Americans, including being added to the National Register of Historic Places last year.
County officials have opted to try to sell the property due to rising maintenance costs posed by the aging facilities.
At last report, no prospective buyers had emerged, a role Lowe and others are eager to take on for several reasons.
“We can ill afford for our rich heritage to be lost,” is among those listed by the African-American Historical and Genealogical Society president, who is a retired educator. “Are we going to allow some outside entity to purchase our history?”
Lowe also believes the affected community shouldn’t “sit idly by” while this history is “disregarded and destroyed,” as have other parts of its heritage.
She also questions why there seems to be an urgency on the part of Surry officials to sell the former school, which is among other holdings surplused including Graham Field nearby and the former Westfield School.
“We want our history back in our hands,” Lowe said in a statement. “We want it now.”
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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