Post-Reconstruction schools on exhibit at Orange County Historical Museum

The Orange County Historical Museum premiered its exhibit on education during the post-Reconstruction period in America Wednesday.

It focused on the creation of African-American schoolhouses in Orange County.

Information and pictures of three Orange County black schoolhouses are featured at the exhibit — Friends Freedmen’s School, Orange County Training School and White Oak Elementary.

Candace Midgett, executive director of the museum, said she began gathering materials for the exhibit at the beginning of March. She reached out to organizations such as Free Spirit Freedom and local scholars such as Steve Rankin and Phil Mace.

“There are many, many voices in this exhibit — none of which are mine,” she said. “The voice that is really the most important is the voice of all of those parents and teachers and communities that made this education happen.”

Midgett said she also reached out to various Orange County community members who had personal experiences with this history.

Tina Connell, who was visiting from Michigan, said she found the exhibit interesting because it celebrates the beginning of education in America for people that are marginalized.

“I love how the Quakers felt that education was important to everyone,” she said.

Midgett said the goal of this exhibit was to offer a more inclusive history of Orange County.

“We want to be as inclusive as possible; we want to be the community catchment of information, and there’s some things that we don’t have now,” she said. “We didn’t have anything in the archives to really help with this particular subject, and I want to fill those gaps.”

Midgett said the important takeaway from this exhibit is that the injustices of education for black residents isn’t just a phenomenon of the past — this injustice still exists in American infrastructure today.

“It’s important for us to be taking stock of the job we’re doing as citizens,” she said. “I think it’s important for us to realize that living in a just society should be a goal we all aspire to but that it’s not necessarily a reflection of the society that we live in today.”

Minority students are not given the attention they deserve in preparing for honors and AP classes, according to a 2009 press release from the NAACP, which was displayed at the exhibit. They also represent less than 1 percent of the students enrolled in these courses, the press release said.

When residents come to visit the museum, Midgett said she hopes they see the truth about how education was in the South.

“It’s a commemoration of the people who contributed to improving a system that was separate and not equal,” she said. “It’s a history of how that system developed and got better over time.”

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