George Washington Carver Elementary School has a long legacy of serving the Black community in Coconut Grove.
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published by WLRN Public Media on June 5. The Spotlight is re-publishing this story under a partnership agreement with WLRN.
Coconut Grove is home for Thelma Gibson. Though it’s vastly different today than when she was growing up. Born and raised in the Grove during segregation, Gibson had to overcome hurdles stemming from racism in her childhood and young adult life.
“It’s so different when I think in terms of what I came up with and how I came up,” Gibson said. “Having to go outside to the toilet and having to pump water and having no electricity and having to wash my feet in the basin. You can’t believe that this was possible, that you can live through this, and still survive, and be able to come up and be successful in life.”
Gibson, 98, went on to have a trailblazing career in healthcare and has given back in countless ways to the community that raised her. She founded the Thelma Gibson Health Initiative, dedicated to improving lives in low-income neighborhoods.
She said her education played a key role in setting her on the path to success. Not just higher education, but going all the way back to her elementary years.
“I went to [George Washington Carver Elementary] when I was six years old, so that was 92 years ago,” Gibson said. “If you expect me to remember everything about that, I’m sorry I don’t. But I remember enough to let you know that it was the Little Red Schoolhouse that I started in.”
George Washington Carver Elementary has been an institution for generations of Black Coconut Grove residents. Earlier this year, school members inaugurated a display in the school’s library honoring the school’s 125-year legacy.
The timeline starts in the late 1800’s, when the school was founded, and photos of past and current Little Hornets are collaged around important dates on a bright red background.
Black and white photos of Gibson are on the wall. She was at the unveiling.
“And to think that that little school has been here for 125 years,” Gibson said, “it makes all the difference in the world. That’s where it all started.”
The Civil Rights Era
Originally, Carver Elementary was located on Charles Avenue. In 1902, it moved to Thomas Avenue to a building fondly called “The Little Red School House.”
It moved to its current location on Grand Avenue in 1924. The new school, then-known as the Dade County Training School, housed elementary and junior high students. The junior high served Black families from as far away as Homestead.
Carver kept growing, and in 1934, it added its first high school class. The school became overcrowded over the years, so in 1952, another connected campus for Carver’s high schoolers opened.
NASA astronaut Winston Scott attended Carver for elementary and junior high grades in the 1950s and ’60s.
“I got a really good, solid, strong foundation at Carver,” Scott said. “They tried to plant seeds in us to let us know that all things change, they continue to get better. They continue to grow and we have to be prepared to take advantage of new opportunities when they come along.”
Carver High graduated its last senior class in 1966, after court-ordered integration. That year, senior high students went to Coral Gables Senior High and other schools. Today, the former Carver high school is the George Washington Carver Middle School.
Scott became one of the first Black students to attend Coral Gables High. He was a sophomore. “It was an adjustment because the culture was different. And growing up in a segregated Coconut Grove I didn’t have exposure to other cultures,” Scott said.
“So, I got to Coral Gables and it broadened my horizons because a lot of my classmates were Cubans, a lot of my classmates were Jewish, a lot of my classmates were white Americans. So, you got to know a lot of kids with a lot of cultural and ethnic backgrounds.”
Post-Integration
“Remember, time passes on. And with time there are changes. And with those changes we have to learn to adjust,” Maud Newbold told WLRN ahead of the celebration. “Remember, an educator is there to work with children, regardless of their race, creed, or color.”
Newbold became principal at Carver in 1988. She was the school’s first Black leader since integration — more than two decades earlier. She is also featured on the history wall.
After the wall’s unveiling in January, Newbold roamed Carver’s courtyard for the first time in years. “It’s amazing. I can’t believe it,” she said. “Look at my Little Carver.”
She remembered walking the halls and greeting the energetic little ones. By that time, Carver had students from all over the world.
“That is what I liked about Little Carver: we had a melting pot,” Newbold said.
Many students didn’t speak English, she said. She would speak to them in Spanish, calling them over to her or telling them to take a seat.
“We were able to communicate with them to make them feel that they were wanted, because they should be wanted. We’re here to teach them and to let them integrate and learn from one another,” Newbold said. “ I want my children… to get a good education while they are here at Little Carver — and that they did.”
A New Generation
Today, Carver is a magnet school specializing in language programs. The once all-Black school is now predominantly Hispanic. In 2023, nearly 70% of students were Hispanic and 18% were white, according to district data. Nine percent of the student body was Black.
Patricia Fairclough, the current principal at Carver, said even though many Black families have moved out of the area, it’s important current students know and honor the people who paved the way for them.
“There’s a new generation coming in,” Fairclough said. She and other educators didn’t want the historic “culture here to be lost.”
And the history remains alive in the people, too. Ava Jean-Poix is a third-grade student at Carver and her mom is a teacher here, but their Carver lineage started with Ava’s great-grandmother.
“I feel like people need to know the history because history is really important. You might have grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren, a bunch of grandchildren, and they might want to know their history,” Ava said, “and it’s just really important to know history.”
