Greenwood High School (Mississippi)
| Greenwood High School | |
|---|---|
| Address | |
  Greenwood High School  Greenwood High School | |
|
1209 Garrard Avenue[1] Greenwood, USA, MS 38930-5125 | |
| Coordinates | 33°30′38″N 90°11′38″W / 33.51056°N 90.19389°WCoordinates: 33°30′38″N 90°11′38″W / 33.51056°N 90.19389°W[2] |
| Information | |
| Type | Comprehensive Public High School |
| Motto | Maximizing Student Potential |
| School district | Greenwood Public School District |
| Principal | Lorita Harris |
| Faculty | 41.05 (on FTE basis, as of 2014-15)[1] |
| Grades | 9 to 12 |
| Gender | coed |
| Enrollment | 752 (as of 2014-15)[1] |
| Website | Official website |
Greenwood High School is a public high school located in Greenwood, Leflore County, in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The school is part of the Greenwood Public School District.
History
Location
Greenwood, Mississippi, is a town of slightly over 15,000 residents located on the banks of the Yazoo River about 130 miles (210 km) south of Memphis, Tennessee, and about 95 miles (153 km) north of Jackson, Mississippi. The city and county are named after Greenwood Leflore, the designated leader of the Choctaw nation who ceded Mississippi land under pressure of the 1830 Indian Removal Act to the United States government in exchange for a land allotment in today's state of Oklahoma.
De Jure segregation years
Greenwood was the original home of the White Citizen's Council, a white supremacist organization established in the summer of 1954 in response to a national trend towards racial integration and civil rights for African-Americans which culminated in the landmark 1955 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.[3]
During this period the town of Greenwood's high school students attended Broad Street High School, the site of today's Threadgill Elementary School — including most notably in its Class of 1955 Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman.[4]
Academics
In 2012 Greenwood High School was attended by nearly 770 students.[5] The school features a student-to-teacher ratio of 17.8 to 1.[5] The school nickname is the Bulldogs.
According to U.S. News and World Report, for the 2009–10 school year Greenwood High School's student body of 719 students was 98 percent of African-American ethnicity and about 1 percent White American.[6]
Greenwood High School was one of the first two public high schools in the state of Mississippi to earn accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.[7]
Demographics
Around 1988 Greenwood High School was almost split evenly between black and white students. In 1998 it was 92% black. Many white students were instead going to the private school Pillow Academy.[8]
Academic performance
The Mississippi Department of Education gave the school an "F" grade for the 2013-2014 school year. In the period circa 2010-2015 the graduation rate was 67.4%.[9]
Notable alumni
- Mario Branch, professional football player.
- Danny Duncan Collum, assistant professor at Kentucky State University and contributing editor of Sojourners.[10]
- Byron De La Beckwith, assassin of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.[11]
- Carlos Emmons, professional football player.
- Webb Franklin, former U.S. Representative from Mississippi's 2nd congressional district.[12]
- R. Glynn Holt, astronaut who trained for (but did not fly in) the STS-73 mission of the Space Shuttle program as a payload specialist.[13]
- Robert G. "Bunky" Huggins, served three terms in the Mississippi House of Representatives beginning in 1972, then served 22 years in the Mississippi State Senate beginning in 1984.[14]
- Kent Hull, former quarterback at Greenwood High School; Hull pursued a professional football career and participated in four Super Bowls.[15]
- Cleo Lemon, professional football player.[16]
- Ericka M. Wheeler, currently a senior at Millsaps College, selected as a Rhodes Scholar for 2016.[17]
- Avery Wood, former football player at Greenwood High School; Wood became director of the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission.[18]
Footnotes
- 1 2 3 "School Directory Information (2014-2015 school year)". U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved November 22, 2015.
- ↑ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Greenwood High School
- ↑ "White Citizen's Councils Aimed to Maintain 'Southern Way of Life,'" Jackson Sun, Jackson, TN, 2003.
- ↑ "Morgan Freeman: Full Biography," All Movie Guide, via New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
- 1 2 "High Schools in Greenwood, MS," HighSchools.com, Retrieved October 9, 2012.
- ↑ "Greenwood High: Student Body," U.S. News and World Report: Education, www.usnews.com/
- ↑ Greenwood High School official website, www.greenwood.k12.ms.us/ Retrieved October 9, 2012.
- ↑ Rubin, Richard. "Should the Mississippi Files Have Been Re-opened? No, because." The New York Times. August 30, 1998. Retrieved on March 25, 2012.
- ↑ Yerkey, Gary G. (2015-11-12). "T.Mac Howard opened a school for disadvantaged youths in a small Southern city". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
- ↑ Abbott, Dorothy R. (1986). Mississippi Writers: Reflections of Childhood and Youth. University Press of Mississippi. p. 697.
- ↑ Nossiter, Adam (2009). Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers. Da Capo Press. p. 116.
- ↑ Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005. Government Printing Office. 2005. p. 1082.
- ↑ Ellis, Lee (2004). Who's Who of NASA Astronauts. Americana Group Publishing. p. 442.
- ↑ Congressional Record, V. 152, Pt. 6, May 8, 2006 to May 17, 2006. Government Printing Office. 2006. p. 8087.
- ↑ "Once Unwanted, Hull Anchors Line". Wilmington Morning Star. January 5, 1989.
- ↑ "Argos Bring In Some Lemon-Aid - Boatmen Sign QB Cleo Lemon". Our Sports Central. March 17, 2010.
- ↑ Amy, Jeff (November 21, 2015). "Millsaps College Says Senior Wins Rhodes Scholarship". ABC News.
- ↑ Schueler, Donald G. (1980). Preserving the Pascagoula. University Press of Mississippi. p. 19.
Further reading
- Charles C. Bolton, The Hardest Deal of All: The Battle over School Integration in Mississippi, 1870-1980. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.