About Summer Hill
The School
Established by Ronald Johnson in 1889, Summer Hill School was a wood framed Rosenwald structure of white clapboard with only a few rooms. Summer Hill School opened its doors with only 55 students from grades 1 - 8.
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After the higher grades were added, the lower grades remained in the old building and grades 9-12 were moved to the new building at the bottom of the hill which was named Summer Hill High School. Summer Hill High School was the only high school that blacks could attend during this period in Bartow County.
The Community
The Summer Hill community included black entrepreneurs and businesses, social and civic organizations, the Summer Hill PTA, churches and Slab Stadium which hosted black baseball teams and served as a business anchor to the community.​
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The Experience
​The Students mostly learned from the worn out books they could not take home to study. Jim Crow laws forced blacks to live "behind the veil" in the words of W.E.B. Du Bois and Civil Rights was mostly a civil fight. But through it all, this village - Summer Hill - raised happy, intelligent and culturally diverse people who have a rich history to tell.
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