Saving the Langston School Building: A Great Investment

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"If other communities can save their black school buildings, why can't we?"

That's the consensus of Langston alumni, attending the 2014 Reunion in Johnson City on the 4th of July weekend.

The old Langston building downtown has stood empty since the school closed in 1965. Still owned by the city, it has served as a storage facility for municipal property the past 50 years.

" We'd like to have it back to where you could walk up the steps and go into the rooms and the gym," says Langston Alumni Group president Barbara (Bobbie) Watterson. "The floors are still beautiful, even the gym floor still has the red marks around it for basketball, just like it was back then."

"We'd like to see that gym turned into a community room, for gatherings and parties."

Talk of saving the old Langston School building began circulating through little groups at the reunion.. seems everybody was talking about it.

"We're working on approaching the city with a proposal to renovate the school building into a community activity center," Watterson says. "We won't ask anything until we have something concrete to propose. We're looking at a revenue stream.. what money could come from renting out the building, so that the city can get back the money spent for renovation."

She says the proposal already has support at least, from many in the Johnson City's African-American community.

"We've got 44 black businesses in town, and we've talked to some of them who have given commitments to put their activities in the building, once it's renovated."

"If other cities can do this with their old school buildings, why can't we?" she wondered out loud. "We don't want to see it torn down. Look at Rogersville, what they did at the Price Public School.. look at Kingsport and Douglass, look at Elizabethton, Greeneville, even Big Stone Gap, Virginia where the city hall is in the old black school. Look at both Bristols. Everybody that renovated their old black school buildings, now have showplaces in their communities. The people were able to show where the city could make money on renovating the buildings, and that's what counts nowadays."

A sense of optimism also settled on the talk of renovating the Langston building, tempered with a bit of reality. "We just want to have our plans together first. As a community, we've only had a couple of meetings, but we are planning others. Once we get everything in order, we'll go to the city with a proposal. It helps that we are working with the Langston Heritage Group, because they have a non-profit 501(c)3 designation. They have been working with the city on various projects, and we're hoping they can help with this one."

"The city has used it as a storage building, and it's a better building than that," she says. "Our school history is in that building, and the heritage of Johnson City and the African-American influence on the city, comes from that building."

"We want our building back," Watterson thought out loud, pausing for emphasis.

"We... want... our... building... back."