Dixie Training School

Front: Berkeley Training High School, first called Dixie Training School, stood here from 1920 until the 1980s. The first public school for blacks in Moncks Corner was founded in 1880. It held classes in local churches until its first school was built in 1900. The three-room school built here 1918-1920 at a cost of $6,700 was one of almost 500 in S.C. funded in part by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation 1917-1932. Reverse: Rev. James Van Wright led a local effort to fund and build the school, with its slogan “A Dollar or A Day.” Rev. Harleston, the first principal, was succeeded in 1921 by R.A. Ready (d. 1952), principal for 29 years. The school, at first including grades 1-11, became Berkeley Training High School in the 1930s. It moved into a new school on U.S. Hwy. 17 in 1955 and closed in 1970 when county schools desegregated.