70th Anniversary: Brown v. Board Integrated Classes But Left Black Schoolhouses Behind In Alabama

By Rebecca Griesbach | rgriesbach@al.com EDITOR’S NOTE: On the 70th anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision, AL.com’s Education Lab examines the legacy of court-ordered desegregation — and what opportunity gaps still remain in communities today. Paulette Locke-Newberns and her sisters, Mary and Carolene, remember the moment they set out to save their childhood schoolhouse. Trees had begun to take root through the floor of the building in Pickensville, Alabama. Vines were starting to crawl across the indoor walls. Chickens from the farm next door had come inside to take roost. The foundation was so weak that it crumbled in their hands. Then they turned their gaze toward a century-old wooden window sash, still intact in 2012 after all those years. “It just starts with a vision,” Locke-Newberns said as she and her sisters showed off the historic school building this winter. “We were just looking at the windows here and said, what are we doing here? What can we do?” Today, the Pickensville Rosenwald School, tucked between farmland just an hour west of Birmingham, is one of few remaining relics in the country of one of the largest and most impactful efforts to educate Black children in the first...