Copyright © 2008 Wilmington College • powered by Campusuite
1803 - Ohio became a state
1805 - Highland County established
1806 - Hillsboro became the Highland County Seat
1804, 1807 - Ohio denied African-Americans any benefit from donations from Congress for school support.
1825 - School Act stated development of schools "…for instruction of every class and grade without distinction."
1829 - The 1825 School Act stated that "nothing in this act contained, shall be so constructed as to permit black or mulatto persons to attend schools hereby established or compel them to pay any tax for the support of such school…"
1833 - American Methodist Episcopal Church at Ohio Conference passed resolution that "common schools…are of the highest importance to all people, but especially to us as a people…duty of every member of this conference to do all in his power to promote and establish these useful institutions among our people."
1842 - John O. Wattles asked Hillsboro people to circulate and sign petition for the repeals of law excluding colored children from the benefit of common school.
1849 - Ohio School Act, a provision for segregated schools to operate in Ohio supported by taxes of black property owners.
1850 - Census: thirty-nine blacks or mulattos attended school in Hillsboro past years and twenty-seven black students within Liberty Township.
1853 - Union School Law put management of black and white schools together and provided the same support per pupil.
April 1853 - Highland Weekly News article stating colored children shall be provided a school when the total number of colored children exceeded thirty, and their average attendance exceeded fifteen.
April 30, 1857 - Care of the colored students turned over to the Township Board.
1860 - U.S. Census, total eighteen black or mulatto residents of Hillsboro and Liberty Township attended school past year.
October 11, 1860 - Colored children in Hillsboro School district placed under the care of the Hillsboro School Board superintendent, and one teacher was employed for the colored students.
October 22, 1868 - Reported in the Highland Weekly News KKK rally in Penn Township on October 10.
June 4, 1868 - Visible Admixture Voting law struck down by Ohio Supreme Court.
1869 - The Township Board of Education for Educating the Colored Youth of Liberty Township and the Hillsboro Union School Board share funds to help build a school house. The Boards made a decision for this after a levy passed.
June 15, 1869 - The Hillsboro School Board purchased a lot June 15, 1869, on the corner of Collins Avenue and North East Street. They purchased the lot from Samuel T. and Sarah E. Anderson at the cost of $1,170.
August 24, 1871 - Highland Weekly News referred to the African-American school opening as "new colored brick school." The Board built a two- story four-room brick schoolhouse for black children in the first through eighth grades. They employed W.H. Garnett as teacher and Miss S.R. Guy as assistant teacher .
October 1, 1874 - Penn Township Board of Education passed resolution saying, "No colored person shall be admitted to white schools of Penn Township."
1882 - Hillsboro's African-American school enrollment at fifty-two
1887 - Arnett Law abolished segregated schools in Ohio
1887 - Hillsboro Board of Education now referred to as "East Street School" in the minutes instead of "colored school."
February 1, 1887 - Old East Street School Building named Lincoln Elementary School
1887- Various newspaper editorials against and for the Arnett Law. "More objections in Hillsboro than anywhere else in the state," stated one writer in the Highland Weekly News.
January 1888 - The State of Ohio Ex Rel. Perry Gibson verses the Board of Education of the Village of Oxford Ohio. Court declared segregation is abolished in Ohio and this includes those schools operating before the Arnett Law of 1887.
1896- Plessy verses Ferguson, Supreme Court upheld as constitutional the "separate but equal doctrine."
1904 - Hillsboro, Ohio the Kittrel Case, William Kittrel sent his step-granddaughter to Washington Elementary School building in Hillsboro. She was allowed to attend one week before the school administration refused her entrance into the Washington School building. William sought legal counsel in Dayton, but he died suddenly, and the case was dropped.
August 1905 - Hillsboro Board of Education established High Street as the dividing line between the white elementary schools of Washington and Webster. The problem was three schools existed.
1920's - Black parents in Ohio schools kept their children home when local school officials began separating the white and black students.
1935 - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) organized a local chapter in Hillsboro and presented a petition to the Hillsboro Board of Education to make Lincoln School building improvements, or the board would find more students at the Webster Elementary School.
June 13, 1938 - School Board passed a bond for $4,500 for the Lincoln School. The money was to upgrade the heating system and electrical wiring, various remodeling projects and other permanent improvements.
Fall 1939 - Hillsboro Board of Education officially requested all black students in the district attend the Lincoln School.
September 1945 - School bond levy put on the voting ballot and failed. The levy proposal included $545,000 for two new schools and plans for abandoning the Lincoln School.
1950- School bond levy of $600,000 failed
November 1953 – The community accepted the Hillsboro School bond levy of $675,000 on the ballot.
1951 - Hillsboro Board of Education discontinued segregation of the seventh and eighth grades from the Lincoln School and integrated them into the new Hillsboro High School.
May 17, 1954 - Supreme Court declared segregation illegal in the historic Brown verses the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. The case was argued by Thurgood Marshall.
May 1954 - Paul Upp, Hillsboro School superintendent, stated in a newspaper interview the Brown ruling would have no immediate effect upon the schools.
July 5, 1954 - Philip Partridge, white Highland County engineer set fire to the Lincoln School to end Hillsboro's segregation. The building was only partially damaged and the School Board decided to make repairs at an estimated $4,109.06.
July 6, 1954 - Philip Partridge turned himself into the police for setting fire to the Lincoln School.
August 9, 1954 - African-American Citizen's Committee appeared before the Hillsboro School Board with a petition asking that the Lincoln School students be integrated at the Washington and Webster schools.
September 9, 1954 - Seventeen out of fifty-six students arrived at the Lincoln School, the remainder of the students; escorted by their mothers, marched to Webster School (thirty-three students) and Washington School (seventeen).
September 16, 1954 - The Hillsboro Schools closed a week for the Highland County fair as customary and reopened with the three separate school districts, a first time in the school's history. In addition, the Hillsboro School Board had authorized Paul Upp to make all assignments for the pupils. The School Board sent home letters to the parents stating any child not in the proper school would be truant.
September 22, 1954 - Thurgood Marshall filed a petition in the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati. Gertrude Clemons, Roxie Clemons, Zella Cumberland, Norma Rollins and Elsie Steward Young with their children and the help of the NAACP sued the Hillsboro School Board for alleged segregation.
September 29, 1954 - Judge Druffel of the Federal District Court in Cincinnati ruled for the School Board and asked for "flexibility" from the parents. Testimony was heard by only the defendants, the School Board. Also, Judge Druffel stated he would not rule again until two weeks after the U.S. States Supreme Court ordered him to rule again.
October 12, 1954 - A jury found Phillip Partridge guilty and Judge George W. McDowell sentenced Partridge to consecutive terms of one-ten years in prison for arson and one-fifteen years for burglary. Partridge was sent to a Columbus Penitentiary. He served served months and then was paroled for good behavior.
November 3, 1954 - The parents appealed to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati
December 10, 1954 - Court of Appeals ordered Judge Druffel to show cause why he should not rule by January 1
December 29, 1954 - Judge Druffel held another hearing, and the only new result was Superintendent Paul Upp admitting that "partial, temporary segregation" existed while remodeling and construction was going on at the white elementary schools. Judge Druffel again ruled in favor of the School Board.
February 15, 1995 - NAACP filed a second appeal in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
May 31, 1955 - U.S. Supreme Court declared a second Brown ruling with integration with "deliberate speed.' Cases were to be determined by district court judges.
September 1955 - Opening school day, thirty-three African American children again sought entrance to the white schools.
October 19, 1955 - A cross burned in a Walnut Street yard at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Eber Blakely, a family previously involved in the Hillsboro lawsuit.
January 5, 1956 - U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in a two to one decision ordered immediate admittance of plaintiffs in schools on a non-discriminatory basis and full integration by fall 1956.
The Court declared the delay of integration had no basis in law, segregation was illegal in Ohio and Judge Druffel in the District Court abused his discretion by failing to properly apply the law to the undisputed facts. Judge Florence Allen followed the higher court decision on the Brown case and ruled in favor of the parents. The Appeals Court told Judge Druffel to reverse his decision, but his reply was, "not unless the Supreme Court tells me."
April 2, 1956 - The Hillsboro School Board appealed to the United States Supreme Court and on April 2 declined to hear the case, effectively upholding the decision of the 6th Circuit of Appeal.
April 11, 1956 - Judge Druffel issued a decree calling for immediate integration of twenty pupils not in school and full integration the following fall.
April 1956 - The Hillsboro School Board ordered placement tests and placed the students in the same grades they left despite the fact of two years of home schooling with public school teachers from the Wilmington Quaker community. Seven out of eighteen students enrolled the following Monday while the others protested their placement. Parents conferred with the NAAC attorneys and three Quaker School teachers but in the end followed the school's required placement of their children.
August 1956 - The Hillsboro School Board rezoned the school districts.
August 26, 1957 - Hillsboro School Board sold the Lincoln School building and lot to the highest bidder, Clarence Pleasant who planed to use the space as a black community center.
September 1957 - Full integration of Hillsboro's schools occurred.
Late 1980's - The Lincoln School building was torn down, and the Samaritan Outreach was built.
May 8, 2004 - An Ohio Historical Marker was placed on the old school lot to honor the school, the significant lawsuit and the people involved.
May 17, 2004 - The nation honors the historic Brown decision and ponders the current situation of Africa-American children's education in America.