Former students remember 85-year-old Fredrick Douglass Elementary School amid rebuild [Video]

After 85 years, Fredrick Douglass Elementary School in Elm City is getting a new building.

The original school, built in 1939, was an elementary, middle, and high school for only Black students.

Wilson County Commissioners approved $1.77 million to demolish and rebuild a new school in January. Crews demolished the old building on February 12, 2024.

It’s emotional for Alice Barnes Freeman to revisit the site and not see the school where she spent 12 years of her education.

“I graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in 1964,” she said.

Today, it’s just a plot of land waiting for a new building to come up in its place.

Freeman said she was heartbroken after learning the county agreed to demolish the school.

“There was sadness. There was anger. All of those emotions [took place] until you stop and you realize that like the phoenix from the ashes can come new …