William Penn High School - Penn Yearbook (High Point, NC)

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FOREWORD It is always difficult to bid an old friend farewell. Thus, understandably, we, who have been privileged to grace her hallowed halls, feel great sadness at having to bid our old friend, goodbye. Since 1923 when old High Point Normal and Industrial Institute became the new William Penn High School thousands who have sojourned here have gone forward to take their places among this community’s, this state’s, and this nation’s most distinguished leaders in many areas of endeavor. The 1968 Pennpoint writes finis to an old chapter. And even as we write we look hopefully to the future in the sure knowledge that the old Penn spirit shall never die. The indelible imprint of seventy-six years during which this school has always represented scholarship, achievement, sports¬ manship, fair play, loyalty and unquenchable spirit cannot be erased with the closing of a door. Her appearance may have been altered, her course may have veered, but that pride in knowledge present in H. P. N. and I.’s first class is present today and shall be for seventy-six years to come, or so long as one H. P. N. and I. or one Penn graduate shall live. This final edition of the Pennpoint undertakes to prove that whatever the time or the circum¬ stances Penn has stamped her name indelibly in the annals of time. We have chosen as our theme two lines from the immortal Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam: 5

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IT WRITES OF BEGINNINGS— Booker Washington once said that if one man would keep another buried in the mire of ignorance he must himself get down in the mire and hold him there. This became the battle cry of all those pioneers striving to create and improve educational opportunities for Negroes in the period following the Emancipation, for they all realized that if the once proud Southern states were ever to take their places among the leading states of this nation they must educate all their people. Truly, they argued, no man can develop responsible citizenship if he remains illiterate. One such pioneer was Solomon Blair who in 1867 began to teach Christianity and the three “R’s” in a two room building on what is now North Centennial Street just east of the present Beeson’s Warehouse. By 1890 the city and the school had grown to the extent that the facilities were enlarged and funds were solicited for a new building. In 1891 the Asheboro Normal School maintained by the Quakers of New York for the training of Negro teachers outgrew its facilities and no boarding places for its 76 out of town pupils could be found there. High Point because of its location on the main line of the Southern Railway was determined to be the most suitable site for relocation. May, 1892 concluded the first year’s work here. 193 students ranging in age from 14 to 64 (10 of whom were married) were taught by Principal W. E. Meade and Mrs. Annie E. Loftin. Classes were conducted in two rooms each 20 feet by 20 feet. There were no windows and the only ventila¬ tion was through numerous cracks in the wall. Sensing a need for greater work, the chairman of the New York Yearly Meeting of Friends came to High Point to secure a suitable site for a new building. As¬ sisted by Messrs. Daniel Brooks and George Gray a site Solomon Blair’s School (1867-1891) An Early H.P.N. and I. Student Body A Cooking Class at H.P.N. and 1. 6