I.M. Terrell High School

History

In 1882, Isaiah Milligan Terrell (1859–1931) became the head of East Ninth Street Colored School, the first free public school for African Americans in Fort Worth. Terrell became Principal and Superintendent of Colored Schools in 1890. In 1906, the school moved to a location at East Twelfth and Steadman Streets, and was renamed North Side Colored School No. 11. A new school building opened in 1910, with Terrell as principal. In 1915, Terrell left the school to become an administrator at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College (now Prairie View A&M University). The school was renamed I.M Terrell High School in 1921, in honor of the former principal. Due to lack of funding, during its early years, the school lacked a gymnasium, cafeteria, and library. The building also had a limited number of rooms for teaching and the textbooks were handed down from nearby white schools. Eventually, the school's first library would be started by Lillian B. Jones Horace, a teacher and librarian who encouraged parents and students to donate books.

In 1938, the school moved to an existing structure (a former white elementary school) at 1411 East Eighteenth Street in the Baptist Hill neighborhood. The building was expanded as part of a Works Progress Administration project. The school's former location became an elementary and junior high school.

In 1940, the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Negroes (ACSSN) selected I.M. Terrell High School to participate as an experimental site in the Secondary School Study (also known as the Black High School Study). The study, funded by the General Education Board, sought to include African American teachers in the development of progressive education. According to the study, by the 1940s the school had 26 faculty members serving 900 students in grades 9 through 11.

In addition to serving students in Fort Worth, the school drew students from areas outside the city, including Arlington, Bedford, Benbrook, Burleson, Roanoke, and Weatherford, where African American children could not attend school.

I.M. Terrell High School closed in 1973 during racial integration of Fort Worth's schools. The building reopened in 1998 as I.M. Terrell Elementary School. In 2004, the portion of East Eighteenth Street around the school was renamed I.M. Terrell Circle South. In 2018, the former elementary school was reopened as the I.M. Terrell Academy for STEM and VPA after a $41 million restoration and construction project.

Music program

G.A. Baxter was the school's music instructor during the mid-twentieth century, when several students who would later become prominent jazz and rhythm and blues musicians attended the school. Various accounts portray Baxter as encouraging his students "to push the boundaries of sound," or as "a stern band director who hated jazz." Free jazz innovator Ornette Coleman was in the school band until he was dismissed for improvising during "The Washington Post." Fellow musicians John Carter, King Curtis, Prince Lasha, Charles Moffett, and Dewey Redman all attended I.M. Terrell with Coleman. Julius Hemphill, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Cornell Dupree, Billy Tom Robinson, Thomas Reese and Ray Sharpe also graduated from I.M. Terrell.

In a 1981 Musician interview, Ronald Shannon Jackson recalls:

Athletic program

From 1951 until 1966, I.M. Terrell High School was part of the Prairie View Interscholastic League, which integrated with the University Interscholastic League in 1970. Hall of Fame coach Robert Hughes coached the basketball team at Terrell from 1958 until the high school's closure. Hughes was the United States' winningest high school basketball coach from February 11, 2003, to December 7, 2010, and is currently the winningest boys high school basketball coach in the United States,

Notable alumni

• John Carter, musician
• James Cash Jr., Harvard Business School, Professor Emeritus
• Ornette Coleman, musician
• King Curtis, musician
• Cornell Dupree, musician
• Lillian B. Horace, educator and author
• Julius Hemphill, musician
• Ronald Shannon Jackson, musician
• Prince Lasha, musician
• Opal Lee, activist, the "Grandmother of Juneteenth"
• Rosalind Miles, actress and fashion model
• George Minor, baseball outfielder
• Charles Moffett, musician
• Dewey Redman, musician
• Ray Sharpe, musician

References

References

1. "About Our School / Homepage".
2. {{Federal register. 76. 43342
3. ["Butler Place Historic District"](https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/AssetDetail?assetID=e0885680-3134-48b3-bb01-88f786545409<!--No PDF but here's the template if/when PDF becomes available: {{NRHP url). [[National Park Service]].
4. Kossie-Chernyshev, Karen. (2010-11-06). "To Leave or Not to Leave?: The 'Boomerang Migration' of Lillian Bertha Jones Horace (1880-1965), Texas's Earliest Known Black Woman Novelist, Diarist, and Publisher". Black Women, Gender & Families.
5. Weekly, Fort Worth. (2018-08-29). "Building Equality". Fort Worth Weekly.
6. (2018-08-20). "Fort Worth ISD Starts School Year With New STEM Academy".
7. "Leta Andrews".
8. Hall, Michael. (January 1, 2004). "Duke of Dunbar".
9. Star-Telegram staff (April 13, 1973). [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/83541783/fort-worth-star-telegram/ "Former Resident's Funeral Tomorrow"]. ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram''. p. 84. Retrieved August 16, 2021.
10. Gayle W. Hanson, "[http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fte56 TERRELL, ISAIAH MILLIGAN [I.M.]]," ''[[Handbook of Texas]] Online'', accessed July 25, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
11. "PVIL Schools". Prairie View Interscholastic League Coaches Association.
12. "Prairie View Interscholastic League Collection - View Records by City". [[Prairie View A&M University]].
13. Madigan, Tim. (October 7, 2002). "Separate but Superior". [[WETA-TV]]/[[Fort Worth Star-Telegram]].
14. (February 11, 2003). "Dunbar's Hughes becomes winningest HS coach". [[ESPN]].
15. "I. M. Terrell High School, Fort Worth, TX". Museum of Education, [[University of South Carolina]].
16. "I. M. Terrell High School Building". Museum of Education, [[University of South Carolina]].
17. ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'' gives 1972 as the year of closure.
18. Fort Worth City Council. (May 11, 2004). "Ordinance No. 15974".
19. Texas Historical Commission. "I.M. Terrell High School (historical marker)".
20. (1994). "Ornette Coleman: A Harmolodic Life". [[Da Capo Press.
21. Nobles, Mark A.. (2011). "Fort Worth's Rock and Roll Roots". [[Arcadia Publishing.
22. Texas Senate. (May 25, 2011). "SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 1178 In Memory of Cornell Dupree, Jr.".
23. Collier, Caroline. (February 27, 2008). "Jazz jumps back onto the Cowtown scene". Fort Worth Weekly.
24. Patoski, Joe Nick. (2008). "Willie Nelson: An Epic Life". Little, Brown.
25. Govenar, Alan B.. (2008). "Texas Blues: The Rise of a Contemporary Sound". Texas A&M University Press.
26. (1 June 1981). "Ronald Shannon Jackson: The Future of Jazz Drumming". [[Musician (magazine).