Marshall County Post

Marshall County Post, Thursday May 30, 2024— 3A 814 W. Commerce St. Lewisburg, TN • Bounce House • Face Painting • Snow Cone Truck • Free Food June 8th 10am-2pm Community Day Celebration It Started With a Vision TRACY HARRIS Staff Writer T he 7th Annual Ros- enwald May Day was held on Saturday, May 4 next door to the old Hill- grove School. This was the fi rst year the event has been held since CO- VID-19. Since 2019, 22 alumni from Hillgrove have passed away. De- spite the void felt by their absence this year, over 200 people stopped by throughout the day. There was so much food to choose from: chicken, hot dogs, many sides, and a whole table of desserts. Kids enjoyed games and a bouncy house. There was music, old photos, and an end- less amount of conversa- tion to go around. The event started in 2014 when Curtis John- son had a vision to re- unite the Chapel Hill community, speci fi cally Hillgrove School alumni. Johnson said, “With a dedicated committee, we started with one school celebrating what we call May Day. Soon after, alumni from the two other Rosenwald schools joined!” Rosenwald Schools started o ff as a partner- ship between Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck, and Co. and Booker T. Washing- ton, president of Tuske- gee Institute. Almost 5,000 schools were con- structed across 15 south- ern states, including 354 in Tennessee. There were three in Marshall County – Hill- grove in Chapel Hill, Cedar Grove in Belfast, and Farmington. All three were fi rst thorough eighth grade in one class- room. Gary Davis attend- ed Cedar Grove as a child. He explained how “all the Rosenwald schools were built within walking distance of smaller com- munities because there was no bus service for the Black children in Mar- shall County back then.” Davis spoke about May Day before COV- ID-19, “They had already been doing this for years. They invited Farmington in with them and then us from Cedar Grove. So this is our third year of coming together. We come together usually on the fi rst Saturday in May, and each school has a speaker that tells some- thing about their school.” Robin McClain at- tended Hillgrove as did many family members before him including his parents Dorothy (Fisher) McClain and Doyal Mc- Clain. “The McClain’s, Hamler’s, Johnson’s, and the Crutcher’s were all from this area,” he said. Robin attended until the end of third grade and then, desegregation hap- pened. “I can remember start- ing the fourth grade over at Forrest when it was a two-story building. I was small but a lot of the guys that were older than me, they went through the struggles of that time. As I got older, it had calmed down some…but there was still tension there. I’d been going to school with some of those guys and living around them, so it got better. But like most things, in the beginning, it was tough. It was really tough.” Hillgrove Alumni –Photos submitted May Day Planning Committee Lib McCCord age 94 on left, Mary Blackmon age 95 on right – eldest Hillgrove Alumni Farmington Alumni Valerie Davis (left) and Hazel Thompson (right) Cedar Grove Alumni Brenda McClain and Gary Davis Members of the Johnson family