The Blackwell School National Historic Site tells the tale of a fraught cultural history.
When most citizenry think of Marfa they think of itsminimalist art view , or themysterious dancing lights . But last weekend , in a particularly poignant kickoff to Hispanic / Latine Heritage Month , residential district members and former bookman ofMarfa ’s Blackwell Schoolgathered at a ribbon - cuttingto commemorate the new symbolisation of their pregnant cultural story . Specifically , theBlackwell School National Historic Site , the commonwealth ’s 430th national park , formally ground on July 17 .
start in the late 1880s , “ Mexican schools ” were established across the Southwest as parents of Mexican - origin need that their children deserved the right to a free public schooling educational activity . The regime ’s result was these schools . They were freestanding , but by no way equal , as they received less funding and imagination than their white twin . By the 1940s there were more than 120 township in Texas that had segregated school for students of Latine line of descent , but today very few structures rest .
At a simple adobe house down the street from Marfa ’s Border Patrol station , the celebration — with concert dance folklórico performance , a mariachi ring , and traditional medicine of the Chihuahuan desert — somewhat belied the complicated chronicle of the school . From 1909 to 1965 Blackwell School was the exclusive public Education Department psychiatric hospital for the city ’s Latine population . In its incumbency it do 4,000 segregated bookman , a separation “ indite by bias , but not by law of nature ” .
Wikimedia/David Larson/NPS
“ Blackwell School NHS is a tangible monitor of the period during which the philosophical system of reprint of adequate dominated education and social systems , ” National Park Service ’s David Larson tell Thrillist over electronic mail .
There were good memories , too . The school had a terrific marching dance orchestra and football team , with money raise for uniforms and instruments by an active multilingual PTA . In aUSA Todayarticleformer scholar Mario Rivera , who attend the Blackwell School in the 1950s at 7 years one-time , says he just think of it as a normal school . " We were never severalize that there was another school for the white scholarly person across the racecourse , " he says .
It might have been because it seemed normal . At that time , segregation of the Latine community from white was pervasive , and interactions between the two chemical group were often violent . Prior to consolidation in the 1970s West Texas class schools , barber shops , and movie theaters ( unofficially).Three cemeteries in Marfa arestillsegregatedwith fence in separate white and Latino residents by airstream .
The Blackwell School Alliance
At the Blackwell School the experience was one of force assimilation . graduate describe the school as “ barracks . ” On adisplay in the schooltitled “ Burying Mr. Spanish , ” bookman narrate having mock “ funeral ” for the Spanish language , pledging their allegiance to English , and write “ S - P - A - N - I - S - H ” on a slice of paper to be squeeze in a cigar box seat to be buried . If they spoke their menage language , they welcome a paddling . ( The paddle is also on exhibit . It is squall “ Sputnik . ” )
“ A lot of us block our speech and did n’t desire our nipper to speak Spanish , ” former student Jessi Silva saidin a statement to the AP . “ But also today , we are in danger of bury our history . The Blackwell School is part of our chronicle , in Marfa and beyond . ”
It was the work of Blackwell alumni that get the ball rolling towards National Park status . In 2006 , a former student name Joe Cabezuela was at a local eating house celebrating the reunification of the 1960 Blackwell class when he learned that there were plans by the school district to demolish the last remaining buildings of the Blackwell School . He ring together with fellow alumni to impose the Marfa Independent School District and implored them to preserve the building . It was a historic artifact . The school district agreed . Now on the books , a 99 - year term of a contract with the Blackwell School Alliance , reports Larson .
The Blackwell School Alliance
The school was number in the National Register of Historic Places in 2019 and in 2002 President Biden sign up the Blackwell School National Historic Site Act into law . Two years later the paperwork was in monastic order and the unexampled home parkland was established . It is just the third interior park situation dedicated to telling advanced Latino account ( out of 431 total ) , joiningCesar Chavez National Monumentin California and theChamizal National Memorialin El Paso . Larson does n’t know whether there is a movement to bear on other Mexican schools in Texas .
“ Many other segregated schools for Mexican Americans have either been demolish or have not been preserved , ” he says . “ The goal with the Blackwell School NHS is to allow more story standardized to this one to be secern . We hope with its new establishment BLSC will reserve others with standardised experiences to come forward and order their story , or their phratry ’s stories . ”
The Blackwell School is open Saturdays and Sundays noontide to 4 pm . There are plans to have a 3 - ergocalciferol imaging virtual turn in the future for those who can not physically gossip BLSC .
