Greenwood High School (Mississippi)

File:Greenwood High School.jpg

The school was reserved for white students only from its founding until 1969, when two African-American students, Marcel Gulledge and Milbertha Teague, walked past a crowd of jeering students and entered the school.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}} It was a part of the Greenwood Public School District until 2019, when that district merged into Greenwood-Leflore CSD."[https://mpe.org/mpe/documents/Consolidation.Final.pdf School District Consolidation in Mississippi] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170702083623/https://mpe.org/mpe/documents/Consolidation.Final.pdf |date=2017-07-02 }}." Mississippi Professional Educators. December 2016. Retrieved on July 2, 2017. Page 2 (PDF p. 3/6).

Greenwood, Mississippi, is a town of slightly over 15,000 residents located on the banks of the Yazoo River about {{convert|130|mi|km}} south of Memphis, Tennessee, and about {{convert|95|mi|km}} north of Jackson, Mississippi. The city and county are named after Greenwood Leflore, the designated leader of the Choctaw nation who ceded Mississippi land under pressure of the 1830 Indian Removal Act to the United States government in exchange for a land allotment in today's state of Oklahoma.

Greenwood was the original home of the White Citizen's Council, a white supremacist organization established in the summer of 1954 in response to a national trend towards racial integration and civil rights for African-Americans which culminated in the landmark 1955 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education.[http://orig.jacksonsun.com/civilrights/sec2_citizencouncil.shtml "White Citizen's Councils Aimed to Maintain 'Southern Way of Life,'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013091831/http://orig.jacksonsun.com/civilrights/sec2_citizencouncil.shtml |date=2017-10-13 }} Jackson Sun, Jackson, TN, 2003.

During this period the town of Greenwood's high school students attended Broad Street High School, the site of today's Threadgill Elementary School — including most notably in its Class of 1955 Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman.[https://web.archive.org/web/20081029172617/http://movies.nytimes.com/person/90514/Morgan-Freeman/biography "Morgan Freeman: Full Biography,"] All Movie Guide, via New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2012.{{cite news |title=Milbertha Tigue |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/11167673/milbertha-tigue/ |accessdate=23 May 2020 |publisher=Clarion-Ledger |date=July 9, 1995}}

In 2012 Greenwood High School was attended by nearly 770 students.[http://high-schools.com/mississippi/greenwood.html "High Schools in Greenwood, MS,"] HighSchools.com, Retrieved October 9, 2012. The school features a student-to-teacher ratio of 17.8 to 1. The school nickname is the Bulldogs.

According to U.S. News & World Report, for the 2009–10 school year Greenwood High School's student body of 719 students was 98 percent of African-American ethnicity and about 1 percent White American.[https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/mississippi/districts/greenwood-public-school-district/greenwood-high-11272/student-body "Greenwood High: Student Body,"] U.S. News & World Report: Education, www.usnews.com/

Greenwood High School was one of the first two public high schools in the state of Mississippi to earn accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.[http://www.greenwood.k12.ms.us/ghs/ Greenwood High School official website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110827215758/http://www.greenwood.k12.ms.us/ghs/ |date=2011-08-27 }}, www.greenwood.k12.ms.us/ Retrieved October 9, 2012.

Around 1988 Greenwood High School was almost split evenly between black and white students. In 1998 it was 92% black. Many white students were instead going to the private school Pillow Academy.Rubin, Richard. "[https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/30/magazine/should-the-mississippi-files-have-been-re-opened-no-because.html?pagewanted=all Should the Mississippi Files Have Been Re-opened? No, because]." The New York Times. August 30, 1998. Retrieved on March 25, 2012.

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The Mississippi Department of Education gave the school an "F" grade for the 2013–14 school year. In the period circa 2010–2015 the graduation rate was 67.4%.{{cite news|author=Yerkey, Gary G.|author-link=Gary G. Yerkey|url=https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/2015/1112/T.Mac-Howard-opened-a-school-for-disadvantaged-youths-in-a-small-Southern-city|title=T.Mac Howard opened a school for disadvantaged youths in a small Southern city |newspaper=Christian Science Monitor|date=2015-11-12|accessdate=2018-09-17}}

• Mario Branch, former professional football player
• Byron De La Beckwith, assassin of civil rights leader Medgar Evers{{cite book | last = Nossiter | first = Adam | title = Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers | publisher = Da Capo Press | year = 2009 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ioiAfzZsxbcC&pg=PP1 | pages = 116| isbn = 9780786748488 }}
• Carlos Emmons, former professional football player, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Pittsburgh Steelers
• Webb Franklin, former U.S. Representative from Mississippi's 2nd congressional district{{cite book | title = Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005 | publisher = Government Printing Office | year = 2005 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=v9MBIctdjjkC&pg=PP1 | pages = 1082| isbn = 9780160731761 }}
• Kent Hull, former professional football player, Buffalo Bills{{cite news | title = Once Unwanted, Hull Anchors Line | newspaper = Wilmington Morning Star | date = January 5, 1989 | url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jElOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ShQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2682%2C1304697}}
• Cleo Lemon, former professional football player, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, and San Diego Chargers{{cite web | title = Argos Bring In Some Lemon-Aid - Boatmen Sign QB Cleo Lemon | publisher = Our Sports Central | date = March 17, 2010 | url = http://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/?id=3976347}}
• Mulgrew Miller, jazz musician

{{reflist}}

• Charles C. Bolton, The Hardest Deal of All: The Battle over School Integration in Mississippi, 1870-1980. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.

• [https://gh.glcsd.org/ Greenwood High School official website]

{{Greenwood, Mississippi}}

{{Leflore County, Mississippi Schools}}

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Category:Public high schools in Mississippi

Category:Schools in Leflore County, Mississippi