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OBSERVATIONS
August 13, 2020 |
 |
 Wingate Lassiter |
Six proud high schools slid into history
with the opening of SSS in August 1969
Nate Sanders, one of the first graduates of Smithfield-Selma Senior High School a half century ago, called to my attention that SSS was the consolidation of six schools, not five, as I wrote last week without naming them.
That gives me a chance not only to set the record straight, but also to share a little more history about those schools.
The communities of Selma and Smithfield each had two high schools --- two for whites: Smithfield High and Selma High; two for blacks: Johnston Central High in Smithfield, Richard B. Harrison High in Selma. Prior to the late 1960s, Johnston County had 17 --- that's right, 17 --- high schools, and only four of them were for African-American students in the segregation era.
As a result, Richard B. Harrison received students from as far away as Princeton. (The county's other two African-American high schools were Cooper at Clayton and Forest Hill on the north side of Four Oaks, quite a distance away from the Benson and Meadow communities.)
The other two high schools consolidated into SSS were Wilson's Mills and Corinth-Holder (a.k.a. Corinth-Holders), which was located in northern Johnston County on the site of present-day Corinth-Holders Elementary School. That area was included in the original SSS district because it was sparsely populated at the time.
It's ironic that today's new and recently enlarged Corinth Holders High --- in an attendance district apart from today's SSS district --- is the largest high school by enrollment in Johnston County, thanks to astounding suburban development in that area next door to even-faster-growing Wake County.
Smithfield-Selma High's opening was part of a dual-purpose plan that consolidated and integrated Johnston County's schools as the tumultuous 1960s drew to a close. I think a big reason SSS opened without the racial strife that plagued integration of schools elsewhere in the South is the fact that everybody, black and white, gave up their old schools at the same time.
Of course, that smooth opening of SSS and other integrated schools in Johnston wouldn't have taken place without competent and enlightened leadership in our school system and our communities in those days. It's a story that never attracted attention like Smithfield's infamous Klan sign did. But I've always felt the successful opening of SSS said much more about our community's character than a billboard put up on private property on the edge of town by a handful of racists.
From the final yearbook of Smithfield High School comes this photograph of Smithfield-Selma Senior High School as its neared completion 51 years ago.
A bird's-eye view of today's SSS campus (Johnston County Public Schools photo).
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