Kelly Miller High School
Encyclopedia
Clarksburg, West Virginia
Clarksburg is a city in and the county seat of Harrison County, West Virginia, United States, in the north-central region of the state. It is the principal city of the Clarksburg, WV Micropolitan Statistical Area...
operated from 1903 until school desegregation in 1956. The school was named in honor of Kelly Miller (scientist)
Kelly Miller (scientist)
Kelly Miller was an African American mathematician, sociologist, essayist, newspaper columnist, author, and an important figure in the intellectual life of black America for close to half a century.-Career:...
, an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, sociologist, essayist, newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
, author, and an important figure in the intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
life of black America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
for close to half a century. and at the time the Howard University Dean of the college of Arts and Sciences, who traveled to Clarksburg to discuss education as a way to improve the lot of the black race. The black community of Clarksburg decided to change the name of the school that same year, 1920, from Water Street 'colored' School to Kelly Miller 'colored' School. The school colors were black and orange. They were known as the Kelly Miller Yellow Jackets. The schools building has been the location of the central offices for the Harrison County Board of Education since 1982. The future of this building is in limbo as the board offices are planning to move to the former Gore Elementary School which is a newer recently closed structure.
Location
Kelly Miller High School is located at 39.27675°N 80.33589°W on EB Saunders Way, in Clarksburg, West VirginiaClarksburg, West Virginia
Clarksburg is a city in and the county seat of Harrison County, West Virginia, United States, in the north-central region of the state. It is the principal city of the Clarksburg, WV Micropolitan Statistical Area...
It is still standing today and serves as the main office for the Harrison County School Board. The builder, Charles D. Ogden, was a Harrison County resident. He completed the building in 1902. Like many black schools throughout the state, Kelly Miller existed not just for the students. Prior to the integration, the school was a focal point of the Clarksburg black community. It served as a rallying point, a social center and an insitution with which the black community could identify. In 1929 the building was expanded to include a gymnasium, swimming pool, large library, more classrooms manual arts workshop, auditorium with a seating capacity of 825 and a first class home economics department.
Kelly Miller
Miller was born in Winnsboro, South CarolinaWinnsboro, South Carolina
Winnsboro is a town in Fairfield County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 3,599 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Fairfield County. Winnsboro is part of the Columbia, South Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area....
in 1863, and graduated from Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
in 1886. He was the first black admitted to Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
when he began his graduate studies in mathematics, physics, and astronomy. Appointed professor of mathematics at Howard in 1890, Miller introduced sociology into the curriculum in 1895, serving as professor of sociology from 1895 to 1934. As dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
The Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is one of nine academic divisions of the Johns Hopkins University, in the United States. Located at the university’s Homewood campus at the Charles Village neighborhood in northern Baltimore...
, he modernized the classical curriculum, strengthening the natural and social sciences. Miller graduated from Howard's School of Law in 1903.
Miller was a prolific writer of articles and essays which were published in major newspapers and magazines, and several books including Out of the House of Bondage. Miller assisted W. E. B. Du Bois in editing The Crisis
The Crisis
The Crisis is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , and was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois , Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Miller, W.S. Braithwaite, M. D. Maclean.The original title of the journal was...
, the official journal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
(NAACP). In the 1920s and 1930s, his weekly column appeared in more than 100 newspapers.
On African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
policy, Miller aligned himself with neither the "radicals" — Du Bois and the Niagara Movement
Niagara Movement
The Niagara Movement was a black civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. It was named for the "mighty current" of change the group wanted to effect and Niagara Falls, the Canadian side of which was where the first meeting took...
— nor the "conservatives" — the followers of Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
. Miller sought a middle way, a comprehensive education system that would provide for "symmetrical development" of African American citizens by offering both vocational and intellectual instruction.
Miller was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha
Alpha Phi Alpha is the first Inter-Collegiate Black Greek Letter fraternity. It was founded on December 4, 1906 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Its founders are known as the "Seven Jewels". Alpha Phi Alpha developed a model that was used by the many Black Greek Letter Organizations ...
fraternity.
Notable Staff
EB Saunders served as the schools principal from 1919 to 1956 when the school closed. Principal Saunders was placed as principal at Linden Grade School after the school closed. The portion of Water Street where the building is located from Washington Ave to the Dead end was renamed EB Saunders Way sometime in the 1990s in honor of the former beloved principal.