Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Side One: The Orange City Colored School was the first building in town constructed for the education of African Americans. Before it opened in 1927, various buildings had been adapted for use as classrooms but were small and poorly lighted. Inspired by her progressive values and the needs of the growing black population, Dr. Frances Dickenson donated five acres of land for the school. Funding was provided by the Board of Public Instruction of Volusia County and a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, which furnished plans and $1,100 to build the four-teacher community school. Associated with what is now Tuskegee University, the Rosenwald program was a major force in rural school design, creating models of positive, orderly, and healthy environments for learning. Herman L. Nordman built the masonry structure with large banks of windows according to “Floor Plan No. 400." This school is one of four Rosenwald Schools built in Volusia County. Historically, the school taught students from first through eighth grade, but the upper grades were discontinued in the 1930s. When black schools in Osteen and Enterprise closed in the early 1950s, those students who could find transportation attended the Orange City School. Side Two: The first principal was William King. Early teachers included Marian L. Coleman, Eva King, Henry J. King, Pauline Poole, Turie Thornton Small, T.E. Thornton, Rosa E. Williams, and Louis King. Marian Coleman was educated in Jacksonville and attended Edward Waters College and Bethune-Cookman College, where she received a Bachelor of Science degree. Her pay in the 1930s amounted to seventy dollars per month, and her appointment as principal in 1943 brought in another ten dollars monthly. In the early 1960s, the Orange City school was renamed the Marian L. Coleman School in her honor. One of the school’s prominent students was Evelyn Wiggins Sharp, who received a Ph.D. from New York University and taught in Volusia County. She was appointed an advisor to the Iranian Ministry of Education for the U.S. State Department in 1960, and worked in Tehran to raise standards of living, literacy, and agricultural practice. When the school closed in 1969, students were transferred to DeLand. The building then served as a community center, recreation facility, and a church. In 1984, it housed the Marian L. Coleman Head Start program. The former school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.