BRYAN, Texas — The struggle for black education, especially in the South, can be traced back to slavery.
In the North, freed black people would have to walk past the white schools, much like children, if they wanted to learn in their own school buildings.
Desegregation of our country’s public school system didn’t come until the 1954 ruling of Brown v. Board of Education.
In Bryan, Texas, all races and grade levels didn’t learn together until the fall of 1965.
”It was something else growing up just being a black American,” admitted Halcyon Sadberry Watkins. “But we got through it and we're very proud.”
Before complete integration, there were limited Black institutions across the city of Bryan.
The city’s first Black school was named Bryan School for the Colored.
It was founded in 1885 at E. 19th Street and Preston Ave and stayed there until it burned down 1971.
Washington Elementary was built in its place and stayed until it burned down in 1971, the same year students of all races and ages transitioned into public schools.
“They didn't have the choices that I have today,” said Barry Davis, the interim director of the African American Museum of the Brazos Valley.
Davis works at the local African American museum, a building built on the same land that used to be home to Washington Elementary.
“This area right here was the only area they could live,” he explained, talking about free black people.
While the community was still separate, school created collaboration.
“The black schools in Bryan, we had some good teachers,” Sadberry Watkins said, with a smile.
Here father, Oliver Wayne Sadberry Sr. was the first principal of Washington Elementary.
“I am so very proud, very proud,” she said, smiling through a few tears.
She explained that her father, not only was an educator, but he was also a community activist, fighting to get fair water treatment for the people in North Bryan.
“They got us a sewage system and then we had running water… then we finally got our streets paved,” she began. “All of this was from his efforts.”
It came at a cost though.
“You could tell he was exhausted a lot of times,” she admitted. “I remember so many days, he [would come] home from school, and just lay across the bed before supper, knowing that he had to go back for a PTA meeting.”
Growing up with such a hardworking father, being a dad, Sadberry Watkins explained, was before all else.
“They would be as proud as I am,” she began, talking about her mother and brother who have since died. “My mother is probably sitting there holding his hand and patting him on the back saying 'you did it Oliver, you did it.'”
O.W. Sadberry Sr. retired the year of the fire, but his namesake didn’t go up in flames.
“It’s a beautiful building,” Sadberry Watkins said as she walked around a construction site, looking at Bryan ISD’s newest intermediate school.
Over five decades later, can you guess what they named the school?
“I petitioned for them to name it out to my dad,” she said. “My brother started pushing, pushing, pushing, and he really wanted my dad to have that honor, because he knew how hard daddy worked.”
And now, for thousands of kids, for years to come, no matter their race, students will remember the name Sadberry all while learning under the same roof, laying the groundwork for future generations of Americans.
“I know it's something that was well earned and it just makes you proud,” she said, with a smile. “The tears will flow, but they are tears of joy.”