Education in the late 1800s was challenging for Black Mississippians.

During those times, it was common for Black people to be educated to the 8th grade or less. For Jackson, that was mostly because there was only one junior high and senior high school for Black individuals in the area, and that was Lanier. Black students traveled from all around the metro area to get to it.

“We got away from the plantation, well, some of us,” the Manager of Smith Robertson Museum and Cultural Center, Theresa King, said of former Black Jacksonians. “We came from kings and queens and then degraded to not even being citizens.”

Smith Robertson knew all too well about not being a citizen. He purchased his freedom in Alabama and moved to Meridian, MS, where a family member taught him barber skills. Robertson soon realized that two Black barbers in Meridian were too many at the time. So he moved to Jackson, where he could make a great living because he was skilled at cutting Black and white customers’ hair.

Robertson noticed many Black people returning to the fields for work. Their lack of education and other skills hindered better work and living standards, motivating Robertson to advocate for better education.

“First, he convinced them to give him space,” said King of Robertson during negotiations with local officials during that time. “He was first given a basement of a firehouse downtown. Once it was full, he started advocating for a school.”

Robertson saw the strong desire for education and knew it would be a catalyst for taking his community to the next level. As he pleaded for a school for Black students, he was also making a way to come through for the community on his own. He saved up and purchased the land located at 528 Bloom Street to be designated as a school for Black children and deeded it to the city.

The school, initially named West Jackson School for Coloreds, was built in 1894. It was Jackson’s first public school for Black students. Robertson’s drive to improve his community led him to become Jackson’s first Black alderman.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, but for a few token Black students, segregation held firm in Mississippi. It was not until 1969 that the Supreme Court ordered Mississippi to immediately and fully desegregate its schools. After years of legal action and federal intervention, Mississippi’s public schools were finally desegregated in 1970.

As Mississippi schools began to populate with students of color, more private schools and academies were built to accommodate those who refused to desegregate. Eventually, Smith Robertson School, also known as the “Mother School,” was no longer needed. It was closed in 1971 and renovated in 1984 when it became a museum.

“Even then, there was a fight,” King said. “Grassroots people fought to make it a museum.”