Past Lincoln students, teachers honor school’s legacy
A San Antonio school district was one of the first in the nation to comply with the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, which required schools to end segregation.
That didn’t mean schools truly were integrated.
On the West Side, Lincoln Elementary School served Black and Hispanic children who lived near Acme Road and Old Highway 90. The youngsters lived in segregated communities like Prosperity Heights and Westridge Park, not far from Kelly AFB, where many parents worked in civil service jobs.
Catherine Elliott’s first job was teaching secondgraders at Lincoln in 1959. She lived on Bemis Drive, within walking distance of the two-story school.
It was a year when the United States was in a race with the Soviet Union to explore space, the New Frontier. Large force movements stirred for the first time in Vietnam. Two states joined the Union — Alaska (49th) and Hawaii (50th).
Elliott’s lessons extended beyond math and grammar. She encouraged students to stay focused, uphold higher standards and strive for excellence.
“I taught my students you are what you are,” Elliott said. “And don’t think you’re below anyone else. That’s what my mother taught me.”
Elliott shared her memories this week across from the old school at Alamo Colleges District’s Westside Education and Training Center, 610 SW 41st St.
More than 60 people attended a ceremony to honor Lincoln Elementary’s legacy and Elizabeth T. Wrenn, the school’s first principal and Edgewood Independent School District’s first African American teacher. Alamo Colleges District and the San Antonio African American
Community Archive and Museum partnered on the community project.
Elliott taught at Lincoln Elementary from 1960 to 1972. She said Wrenn treated everyone the same, with respect and expectation to reach their full potential.
A photo slide show of Elliott’s classes and the school’s history played on two video screens. Former San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea “Vocab” Anderson hosted the event titled “Honoring Lincoln
Elementary: Black Westside Voices.” Born at Lackland AFB, Anderson said she was from the West Side.
She recited “Womb of the Westside,” a poem honoring the stories and businesses of Black West Side neighborhoods. The verses soon will adorn the walls of the training center. Anderson said the school was meant to be desegregated, but community demographics and redlining “painted a different picture of what desegregation
actually looked like.”
“Change moves slowly despite what history and the media tell you,” she said.
Anderson said while February is Black History Month, the stories told at the event are part of “American history yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
Martin Luther King Jr. March Commissioner Dwayne Robinson recalled when the West Side had thriving Black communities, including Dunbar and Grant elementaries, which served primarily Black students.
“No official preservation offices are archiving these stories,” Robinson said. “It’s community members, interest groups, historians and now, Alamo Colleges and SAAACAM making sure our stories aren’t lost.”
Joseph Jarmon Sr., who moderated the event, invited former Edgewood students to join Elliott in
discussing the district’s effect on their lives.
Diana Herrera, a lifelong resident of Edgewood, was recognized for telling lost community stories of the West Side.
She said when segregation ended in San Antonio, the district already had prepared before it was law. Edgewood was always at the front, fighting for equity with lawsuits, she said. In 1968, students had walkouts against inadequate and substandard conditions at Edgewood High School.
“And we have continued to fight for all children,” Herrera said.
Local artist and former Edgewood ISD student Gracie Poe said the confidence her teachers at George Washington Carver School — which also served primarily Black and Hispanic students — instilled in her had taken her a long way.
“We didn’t know, as a segregated school, there was anything else to strive for,” Poe said. “I had to be somebody. When you take the shackles off your mind, you can soar.”
Mike Flores, Alamo Colleges District chancellor, said Lincoln Elementary holds a special place in the collective memory of the West Side.
“By honoring the past, we lay the foundation for a more inclusive and equitable future,” Flores said. “One where every voice is heard, and every story is valued.”
Deborah Omowale Jarmon, the SAAACAM CEO and director, said the project preserves community memories and shares those memories through multiple platforms. She said the project dispels the myth that San Antonio’s Black residents were confined to the East Side.
“The story of Lincoln Elementary connects people of two cultures under one roof to advance the education of children in the neighborhood,” Jarmon said. “We believe common stories told through a common language will build a collective future.”
Northwest Vista College President Amy Bosley agreed. She was glad they shared the stories and, more importantly, archived them “so others can learn from them.”
The ceremony ended with the unveiling of a portrait of Wrenn. Alamo Colleges commissioned the painting by artist Kaldric Dow, and it will be on exhibit at the center. The ceremony was one more way to commemorate the principal’s legacy, said Sammi Morrill, associate vice chancellor of Operations within Economic and Workforce Development.
Morrill was proud Alamo Colleges and SAAACAM continued Wrenn’s work and honored the principal’s place in history.