Cumming Street School
Cumming Street School opened its doors to Black elementary school students in 1926. It served grades 1-11 until Carver High School opened in 1938, after which Cumming Street School eventually became a Junior High and Elementary school. James Frank Collins, one of South Carolina’s influential architects, designed the building. The school’s origins are complex, but one of the most significant and largely underrepresented factors is the letter writing campaign conducted by Asa Thompson.
Mr. Thompson was born in 1871 in a house on what became known as East Cleveland St. but is listed initially as the “street behind the college” in the 1880 US Census. The Thompsons resided in the neighborhood for decades in houses with addresses on Bell and Jefferson streets. Mr. Thompson was educated out of state but returned to teach and eventually became the principal of a Rosenwald school located in Whitney, SC. From January to October of 1919, Mr. Thompson wrote at least one article and three letters to the editor in the Spartanburg Herald, in which he outlined the achievements of “colored schools of the county” and advocated the creation of a Black high school. Mr. Thompson’s arguments for the establishment of secondary education for Black youth in Spartanburg stemmed
from his commitment to Booker T. Washington’s platform of general improvement through education. Mr. Thompson also worked for D.A. DuPre at Wofford College, which may have given him contact with Spartanburg civic and education leaders and aided his efforts more generally.
Cumming Street School boasted some of the most important educators and administrators in Spartanburg history. Dr. C.C. Woodson was Principal of the high school in the 1930s before he took the reins of Carver High School. He was soon followed by E.B. Coleman who led Cumming Street Junior High and Elementary School with a firm and steady hand until it closed in 1969. In interviews, former students talk about fearing Mr. Coleman but respecting his fair and principled leadership, and they speak with genuine admiration and fondness for their former teachers. Mrs. Stacey Whitmire, Mrs. Hattie Bell Penland, Mr. Charles Ragin, Mrs. Frances Thompson, Mrs. Addie Thorpe and many others are cited by their former students as formative influences in their lives.
Cumming Street School served thousands of students between 1926 and 1969 when it closed due to the court ordered integration of Spartanburg public schools. The school served as an “individualized learning center” from 1969 to 1982, when the building was condemned for asbestos contamination. Wofford College purchased the building in February 2008 and it now sits unoccupied on Wofford’s expanded campus.