Scipio A. Jones High Schl Alumni Bldg Repair Fund

I am fundraising for the Scipio A. Jones High School National Alumni Association, headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas, hereafter referred to as the Alumni Association. We are in the midst of a “National Alumni House Building Campaign,” to raise funds for major repairs to our alumni meeting house. We are a 501 (C) 3 Certified Charity, and your tax-deductible donation will support exterior restorations to the Alumni Association headquartered building. This cause is important to me because I am a graduate S.A. Jones High School and I serve on the national alumni board. The S. A. Jones High Alumni building was built in 1949, and is listed on the National Historic Registry for its historic significance as a former "Chinaman grocery store" in an all black community. Like many African Americans public schools in the South, S. A. Jones was a casualty of desegregation when full desegregation was ordered for all North Little Rock schools in 1970. Soon after, plans were in place to erase the school's existence and eventually close it. Eight years later, concerned former teachers and administrators worried about the loss of our legacy formed the Alumni Association with two goals: 1) Organize and charter a national alumni association; and 2) Have a headquartered building for meetings, and a place to house the high school's few treasured left over artifacts after many were classified as junk by the city's School Board and discarded in the city's dump. Alumni have toiled four plus decades to preserve our compelling history of resilience and triumph in the face of disparities and gaps in educational opportunities when compared to the city's all white high school, and included less funding for our school, tattered books, and inadequate supplies and athletic equipment. Curtis Sykes, an educator and former president of the Alumni Association purchased the Huie Grocery store (the “Chinaman Store), remodeled it, and sold it the Alumni Association for a modest amount in 1987. Our fundraising goal is $50,000. A gift of any amount is appreciated. Please SHARE this fundraiser link.

Education for Black students connected to the start of Scipio A. Jones High School, began on the northside of the Arkansas River in 1887, with the name eventually becoming Scipio A. Jones High in 1928, in honor prominent Arkansas black Judge Scipio Africannus Jones, born in 1863. Learn more about Scipio A. Jones and the Alumni Association history, click: https://sajonesnationalalumni.com/site/

We produced hundreds of phenomenal students who excelled in spite of being regulated to a poorly funded segregated public education, and includes: NBA all-star player Eddie Miles who played with the Detroit Pistons and the Baltimore Bullets, now known as the Wizards; Eugene Howard who played football for the Los Angles Rams and the New Orleans Saints; jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders; record producer Al Bell, co-owner of Stax Records who discovered rhythm and blues musician Issac Hayes. Ramona Worlds Arnold, a former national Alumni Association president and the 12th president of the national Jack and Jill of America; Robert Harrison, who was also a former national Alumni Association president, Alabama County Commissioner and former owner of one of America’s largest Ford & Lincoln Mercury Car Dealerships, earning him the rank of 64th largest black owned cooperation in America; and Dr. Samuel Massie, the first African American chair of the chemistry department at the U.S. Naval Academy, and former president of North Carolina Central University.

The "North Little Rock Six," (six black S. A. Jones High School students) made history when they attempted to integrate all white North Little Rock (NLR) High School on September 9, 1957, a few weeks before Little Rock's Central High School was integrated on September 23, 1957. The "NLR Six" made history again in 2023, when the Washington Post doing a story on Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones noted he was in one of the students in the photos where NLR High School students thwarted the NLR Six's attempt to integrate the school.