A Mount Pleasant community is working to save a historic African American schoolhouse. (Source: Live 5)A community in Mount Pleasant is trying to preserve a historic African American schoolhouse.
The schoolhouse dates back to the early 1900s and is located on Seacoast Parkway off Longpoint Road.
“I can remember walking down this road with my parents and going into a one room schoolhouse,” said Thomasina Stokes Marshall who attended first grade at the old Longpoint Road School.
The property is being sold to a developer who plans to build a memory center for Alzheimer’s patients.
“Right now, we’re planning a strategy of how we can move, but before we move, we can we need to do an analysis of the building to make sure it can survive the move,” said Michael Allen of Mt. Pleasant Settlement Communities.
On Friday members of the Settlement Communities and the Mt. Pleasant Historic Commission took a tour of the the building.
They saw several items that brought back fond memories.
For them there is one goal.
“My concern is that we preserve the structure,” Stokes Marshall said.
Even the seller of the property wants to see the schoolhouse stand again.
“I have faith that it could be moved and can be preserved like it was so we can tell our great grandchildren that this is where black people went to school,” Claudia Holmes Mazyck said.
Members of the Mount Pleasant Historic Commission are hoping to move it to the Snowden Community Center.
The sale of the property is expected to be finalized in the next couple of months, so the commission has to come up with a solution soon.
Commission members also are researching how much it will cost to move the schoolhouse.
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