When Lower Merion Schools Were Desegregated
On the morning of August 27, 1963, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the night before, “A stormy, three-hour meeting of the Lower Merion School Board was climaxed Monday night by a 8-0 vote to close the predominantly Negro Ardmore Elementary School [Ardmore Avenue School] to speed integration.”
Just before it closed, Ardmore Avenue School had 188 black students and 35 white students. Most of the white children were special education students and were not integrated with the black children.
At that time, Bryn Mawr School had a smattering of black students. Wynnewood Road School, Penn Wynne School, Penn Valley School, Belmont Hills School, Merion School, Bala School, Cynwyd School, Narberth Elementary School and Gladwyne School were almost 100% white. Yes, before the Ardmore Avenue School closed, Lower Merion School District had 11 elementary schools.
The first school at the site of what became the Ardmore Avenue School (across the street from the Ardmore Public Library) was built in 1875. Fire destroyed it in 1900. The Ardmore Avenue School as pictured here, was built the following year. It was closed before the start of the 1963-1964 school year, and demolished in 1965.
A photo taken in the early part of the 20th century of students at the Ardmore Avenue School. At that time, the ovewhelming majority of children attending the school were white. Notice that the photographer (or somebody) decided to put all the black children in the back row.
1961 Main Line Times Article
Wendell Holland talks with Ted Goldsborough of the Lower Merion Historical Society.
Holland noted that [about the Armdore Avenue School] there were good things and bad things. “It was convenient. It was a community school in the truest sense. Everybody could walk to it.” … “Many alumni allege that the quality of education was in fact inferior – that the teachers were not the finest in the school district – that the facilities were lacking. We didn’t have a nice grass field to play on at recess, we had a parking lot to play on.”
Wendell Holland’s Third Grade Class Picture (1960-1961 at Ardmore Avenue School
Holland later starred for the Lower Merion Aces basketball team,vfrom 1968-1970. From there he went to Fordham on a full basketball scholarship, and then graduated from Rutgers Law School.
And his son Wendell Holland Jr. won $1million the the TV show Survivor.
But before any of that happened, Wendell Holland Sr. was one of the kids at the Ardmore Avenue School, until August of 1963 when we was transferred for sixth grade to the Wynnewood Road School.
In 2013, Lower Merion School District recognized the 50th anniversary of the closing of the Ardmore Avenue School.
From the LMSD Website – “As the nation marked the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, the Lower Merion community honored the anniversary of an important local chapter in civil rights history — one that changed our schools forever. In 2013, community members gathered for The Moment of Integration: The 50th Anniversary of the Closing of the Ardmore Avenue School. The program included the dedication of an historical marker at the site of the Ardmore Avenue School at 75 Ardmore Avenue and a symbolic walk to Lower Merion High School where a formal ceremony and several informational presentations were held.”
Mural at Lower Merion High School, dedicated in 2013 commemorting “The Moment of Integration.”