Old Springdale School (Site)

This was known as Bailey's School.


<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>
<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Here follows the school history as published by Fairfax County Public Schools on their website:

The history of Bailey’s dates back to shortly after the founding of Fairfax County Public Schools in 1870. For the first 76 years of its history, the public school system in Fairfax County was segregated by race. School system records indicate that a one-room schoolhouse for white children at Bailey’s Crossroads existed by 1874, when Louisa A. Ball was employed as its teacher. The earliest records of a school for African-American children at Bailey’s Crossroads date to 1886 when Harriet J. Farrier was hired as its teacher. When the current Bailey’s Elementary School building on Knollwood Drive opened on September 2, 1952, only white children from the surrounding community were admitted.

African-American children had no permanent schoolhouse until 1922, when a building was constructed on Lacy Boulevard. Local tradition tells that prior to this time the children attended school in structures where the congregation of Warner Baptist Church worshipped. The children attended the Bailey’s “Colored” School, as it was known in historic records, until 1956, when Lillian Carey Elementary School opened nearby on Summers Lane. Named for a former FCPS teacher and principal, Lillian Carey Elementary School closed in 1965, during the racial integration of the public school system. The first documented integration of African-American children into the formerly all-white Bailey’s Elementary School occurred in 1963. Today, Bailey’s Elementary School is one of the most culturally, economically, and linguistically diverse schools in Fairfax County.


<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>
<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>•<•>

Here follows an excerpt from the Annandale Today newspaper:

A Bailey’s Xroads resident is documenting the history of a vibrant Black community
July 12, 2023

People never locked their doors in Springdale, added Robert Wright, who moved to the neighborhood from Lincolnia when he was 8.

Wright’s family lived in a boarding house on Lacy Boulevard that had been the first Black elementary school in Bailey’s Crossroads. The building is now a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Many firsts:
Wright went to segregated schools – James Lee Elementary School and Luther Jackson High School. After he graduated in 1960, he became one of the first Black students at Harvard, a civil rights activist, and one of the first Black attorneys in Fairfax County.