Hackney School

The Hackney School was a private secondary school in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It served as secondary education for black students until merging with the Quaker Freedman School to form the Orange County Training School.

History
The Hackney School, also known as Hackney’s Educational and Industrial School, Hackney High School, or “Hack’s High” was established in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1913. Its namesake, Louis H. Hackney served as the pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church in the late 1800s and principal of the nearby Quaker School from 1898 to 1912, allowing him to establish a firm leadership position within the Chapel Hill community. Hackney was able to use this influence to obtain funding from local black families who were frustrated with the lack of available secondary education. On May 22, 1913, Louis H. Hackney and his wife Lara purchased a piece of land just south of the Quaker School, and west of Merritt Mill Road, from the Bane family. This was where the Hackney School was built. The school served as a private institution for black children who were previously not able to attend school past the seventh grade. In its early years, the school housed over 200 students.

Founder Rev. Dr. Louis Hackney
Rev. Dr. Louis H. Hackney was born in 1858 in Chatham County, and died on December 19, 1937, in Chapel Hill. He married his wife Lara A. Edwards on October 21, 1876, and they had two children.

Hackney served as a Baptist pastor for much of his life, presiding over many congregations in the Chapel Hill area. These included: New Hope Ministry Baptist Church, Mt. Zion Baptist Church, and First Baptist Church (formerly known as White Rock Baptist Church). Reverend Dr. Hackney's experience in education began as principal of the Quaker Freedmen School between 1898 and 1912. After starting the Hackney school and serving as its principal and one of the two history teachers, Hackney sold the property for $2300. The Hackney School merged with Quaker Freedmen School to become the Orange County Training School in 1916. Despite widespread racial discrimination at the time, Hackney amassed enough wealth to acquire and own land from 1878 until he died in 1937. Records state that he also sold land to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1921.

Transition to Orange County Training School
Unlike Quaker Freedmen School, which taught grades one through seven, and was open from October to March, the Hackney School was established to give African American children access to sustained quality education for longer portions of the year. However, although the school benefitted the children immensely, funding became increasingly problematic. As a result, Dr. Hackney was approached by the Orange County Board of Directors with the idea to consolidate his Hackney School and the Quaker Freedmen School into one unified institution. He agreed, and in 1919, after operating the Hackney School for seven years, he sold it and the land to Orange County.

Students from the Hackney School and Quaker Freedmen School, many of whom went on to become teachers, were combined and educated at the Orange County Training School. On June 12, 1922, tragedy struck when a fire in an adjacent building spread to the training school, reducing it to rubble. For two years after the fire, concerned individuals from the community made various efforts to help maintain consistent, quality education for African American children. Small private schools, such as the Carey (Carrie) Jones School on Roberson Street and the Pendle School on McDade Street, emerged to support the cause. In 1924, a man named Henry Stroud donated land to begin the construction of the new Orange County Training School. The total cost of construction of the newly built O.C.T.S. was $23,112, and it became the largest Rosenwald school in the county.

Notable people
The Hackney School's Board of Trustees included Thomas L. McDade, Edward Allen, E. B. Jones, S. J. Caldwell, William McDade, and George McCauley. Along with Reverend Dr. Louis H. Hackney, other teachers at the school included “Jessie O'Kelley (domestic science), Amy Rogers (music), Carrie Jones (history), and Jim Rogers (arithmetic)”.

Carey (Carrie) Jones taught at not only the Hackney School, but also at the Quaker School, American Missionary Association subscription school, and later the Orange County Training school. She also ran a school out of her home on Robeson Street. Mrs. Frances Hargraves, born in 1914, was one of the students at the Hackney school. In an interview with Bob Gilgor, she recalled her time at the school from 1st grade to when Orange County Training School burned down. In the same interview she recalled her time attending Carey (Carrie) Jones' home school before her transfer to Hackney. Similarly, Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten was born in 1893 and attended the nearby Quaker school until she was forced to quit at the age of 12 due to work.