As home to a thriving high school, successful businesses, and churches, the Brooklyn neighborhood in uptown's Second Ward was a "self-sustaining city within a city" for many of Charlotte's blacks for more than a century after the Civil War.

It's a history with close ties to Second Ward School, the first public high school for blacks in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The school's 46-year legacy ended in 1969 with urban renewal; by 1970, Charlotte launched the nation's first full-scale desegregation plan.

On Saturday, members of the high school's alumni foundation celebrated the school, and its neighborhood, with a "Remembering Brooklyn" event featuring a historical play presenting Brooklyn through archival photos and plenty of reminiscing.

The celebration was part of the alumni group's annual reunion on Labor Day weekend. Up to 250 alums from across the country were expected to attend events Saturday, according to foundation archivist Vermelle Ely, including an awards banquet, where the foundation was to grant six scholarships to high school seniors.

Attendees included Second Ward graduates like Price Davis, 90, who says his diploma from the class of 1939 allowed him to land a secure job as a truck driver based in New York City.

"It afforded me a job," said Davis, who has since returned to Charlotte. "The second-best thing to heaven is going to Second Ward High School."

Alums, dressed in the school colors of blue and white, gathered for a remembrance ceremony at the school's historical marker, located in front of what is now Morgan School at 700 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., formerly Second Street. The Brooklyn neighborhood was roughly bounded by Morehead, McDowell, Trade and College streets.

Inside, in the Morgan School gym - which is also the original Second Ward School gymnasium - playwright Ruth Sloane and actors performed excerpts from her play, "The Second City." The historical drama tells the story of Brooklyn's citizens, lifestyle, spiritual houses and professional residents. Actors performed in front of large projector screens displaying photos of the Brooklyn area, then and now.

The 30-year-old Second Ward High School National Alumni Foundation formed in 1980 to keep alive the school's name and neighborhood, Ely said.

The historical marker and the gymnasium are the only things left of the school, said Ely, who is 77 and a member of the class of 1949.

Ely said alums would love to see the Second Ward School name live on, on a new school building.

"They can name one, build one, whatever," she said. "We still want our school."