Stanton High School
is one oldest high schools in Florida. The
old Stanton school is only three blocks from our school. A group of
African Americans
from Jacksonville started a program called Education Society.
In 1868, they bought some property to build a school.
They paid $850.00 for the property.
They wanted to use the property to build a school know as the
Florida Institute. But due to
money problems were unable to build until December of that year.
A school was built of wood. It
was named Stanton after Edwin McMasters Stanton.
He was President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War. He believed in fair and free education for African Americans.
Stanton was the first school of education for African Americans in Florida. The school was run by Freedman’s Bureau until the county leased it to start a public school. A fire burned the school one to the ground in 1882. Another school was built only to be burned down in a massive fire that swept through Jacksonville May 3, 1901. A new school was constructed in 1902 and operated until 1917. The Board of Public Instruction, the Stanton trustees, and some Jacksonville citizens decided the wooden building was deteriorating and unsafe, in this same year a new building was constructed in the LaVilla area. James W. Johnson was the principal.
by Dustin McCausland