Among the rolling horse farms of Harford County?s northeast countryside, Christine Tolbert is preparing a piece of the county?s history for its 140th anniversary.
The Hosanna School, the county?s first school for black people, established after the Civil War, will celebrate its anniversary Saturday with a banquet in Edgewood.
“When the school first opened, everybody was so hungry for an education that the adults would come to school with their children to learn, and nobody was embarrassed,” said Tolbert, a retired teacher and an alumna of one of Hosanna?s last classes in the 1940s.
Built in the Quaker community of Berkeley in 1867 to avoid those who would oppose educating blacks, the school was among the first to offer a first- through seventh-grade education to those who lived nearby or could afford room and board, Tolbert said. It was followed in a matter of months by establishment of the McComas Institute in Joppa, but the first “colored” high school in Harford did not open until 1930, she said.
“If you didn?t have a school in your area, you just didn?t go,” she said.
The wood-frame, shingled building had two classrooms ? one on each floor ? heated only by a pot-bellied stove now hunkered in the school?s vestibule awaiting restoration. The bathroom was outside in a separate building, and still is. Though the current, modern restrooms were built in the 1990s, Tolbert said she still enjoys the expressions of visiting children when she says they have to go outside.
Hurricane Hazel tore apart the second floor in 1954, but Tolbert lobbied the state and county for funds to have it rebuilt by 2005. The lower classroom?s old-fashioned desks had to be pieced together from private collections and antique stores because the originals had been cleared out when the school closed in 1945.
Now, the restored school acts as a museum and a living reminder of Harford?s segregated past. Tolbert has a picture of the class of 1898 hanging on one wall, and can point out her grandmother in the third row.
Each summer, a small class of children attend a weeklong “heritage camp” at the school, learning about Harford County?s history, the school and the lives of black people while the school was operating, Tolbert said. The “Book of Dreams” project, which invites students at every county school to learn and write about slavery and emancipation, kicked off at Hosanna in April.
At this weekend?s banquet, the history and importance of African-American education will be discussed with Michael Crutcher Sr., a Frederick Douglass re-enactor.
Shirley Dunsen, a 73-year-old Aberdeen resident, said she started going to Hosanna in the first grade and was part of the restoration fundraising efforts.
“We all had our memories; we had all this history in our heads, so we all put it together for this,” Dunsen said. “It was just such a proud thing to do.”
