A West Texas school built in 1909 to segregate Mexican and Mexican American students as part of “separate but equal” education became a national park on Wednesday.
Alumni fought to preserve the school in Marfa, arranging for it to be turned into a museum and landmark despite their complicated connection to it, according to a National Parks Conservation Association news release.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland formally established the Blackwell School National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas, as the nation’s newest national park and the seventh national park unit designated by President Joe Biden.
“This site is a powerful reminder of our nation’s diverse and often complex journey toward equality and justice,” Haaland said in a statement. “By honoring the legacy of Blackwell School, we recognize the resilience and contributions of the Latino community in our shared history.”
According to a 2022 Dallas Morning News story, the population of Marfa in the early 1900s was largely Hispanic, but the students were instructed to speak only English on campus.
Spanish words written on slips of paper were buried in a mock funeral at the school, according to a story on the Blackwell School’s website.
“They were told to bury their native language and leave it behind. They were threatened with punishments if they disobeyed,” said Theresa Pierno, chief executive of the National Parks Conservation Association, in a 2022 news release announcing the passage of the Blackwell School National Historic Site Act.
The school was also underfunded with secondhand books and furniture at a time when segregating Hispanic schoolchildren was common across Texas.
The designation as a national park provides permanent protection to help tell the history of Texas school districts that established separate elementary schools for Mexican American children, according to the Interior Department.
The school in Marfa, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of the U.S.-Mexico border and 455 miles (732 kilometers) southwest of Dallas, was closed in 1965 with the integration of the Marfa Independent School District, the Interior Department said.
The site includes the original adobe schoolhouse and a classroom built in 1927. The buildings contain photographs, memorabilia, and interpretive panels that feature quotes and stories from students and teachers.
“The school serves as a significant example of how racism and cultural disparity dominated education and social systems in the United States during this period of de facto segregation from 1889-1965,” according to the website.
The site joins recent additions to the national park system that include the Amache National Historic Site that was a Japanese internment camp in Colorado; the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Illinois and Mississippi for the Black Chicago teenager who was abducted, tortured and killed in 1955, and Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park in Kansas for the the 1954 ruling that struck down “separate but equal.”
The Associated Press and Dallas Morning News archives contributes to this report.
