Historic Charlotte school holds memories — and broken promises, Cherry neighbors say
When Barbara Rainey stepped into the vacant Morgan School months ago, she was hit with an onslaught of memories.
Learning the three “R”s — “reading, writing, ‘rithmetic,” she joked — practicing cursive writing on lined paper in the first grade, standing in line to participate in spelling bees: It all came flooding back.
Now, when she looks at her alma mater, she sees an opportunity to preserve history.
“It just hurts my heart to think that people wouldn’t value that,” Rainey said.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, which owns the Morgan School, is considering leasing the building to local youth arts organization Arts+.
Cherry neighborhood leaders have met with CMS superintendents for years to secure a deal to repurpose the building to serve residents. They’re opposed to the arts group leasing the space and held a gathering Friday to voice concerns after learning the CMS board could soon approve the lease.
Cherry, a historically Black neighborhood near uptown Charlotte, is what some organizers say is a perfect example of gentrification in the growing city.
In a neighborhood framed by uptown’s rising skyline, the building is a relic of what longtime residents remember as Cherry’s brightest, richest years.
Where Black families once lived and sent their children to school, renovated and more expensive homes have been built, changing the neighborhood’s character and driving up the cost of rent and property taxes.
The former Morgan School, which was built in 1925 and stands in the heart of the community, hasn’t been in use for nearly five years.
Due to rising house prices, only a few longtime Cherry residents remain, and many of them have been fighting for control of the building for decades now, they say — but that’s nothing new.
Organizing is what built the Cherry community.
Morgan School history
Platted in 1891 by John Myers as a residential area for Black workers, Cherry has become desirable for its proximity to uptown as Charlotte has grown and attracted white families.
And as white families moved in, longtime residents said, Black families were forced out — Black families who lived there for generations.
When the neighborhood’s Morgan School closed in 1969, and students were supposed to be bused to Myers Park, Elizabeth and Eastover schools and no bus was provided, parents took matters into their own hands.
They banded together, bought a bus they called the “Blue Goose,” and drove the kids to school themselves.
From that first seed of organizing grew the Cherry Community Organization, which received its 501c3 tax-exempt status in 1979 and continues to advocate on behalf of the neighborhood.
It’s more than a neighborhood association — it continues Cherry’s legacy of Black homeownership as one of Charlotte’s first community development corporations, which owns and manages properties in the neighborhood, ensuring home affordability and preventing displacement in the 130-year-old community.
Berlinda Tolbert remembers the Morgan School as a symbol of enlightenment and education. Tolbert, who later went on to attend the North Carolina School of the Arts, attended the school until the sixth grade.
“It was here that I went to school, that I played in the park,” she said. “It was here that I was allowed to dream.”
Tolbert went on to a career in television, starring on CBS sitcom The Jeffersons in the 70s and 80s. Though she doesn’t live in Charlotte anymore, she returns often to fight alongside the Cherry Community Organization (CCO) for the Morgan School.
“This community has new neighbors now, and we understand that new neighbors are good. No one expects a community to remain the same as life moves forward,” she said. “But in that moving forward, you embrace one another.”
Sylvia Bittle-Patton was one of the students who was bussed to school by parents after the Morgan School’s closure, and her mother, Yvonne Bittle, is the last living cofounder of the CCO.
She’s been advocating for Cherry’s use of the Morgan school for years now, she said, and was disappointed to hear of the building potentially going to Arts+.
“We thought it would be Cherry’s time. We had waited patiently for years. And that’s the agreement that CMS verbally gave to the community after a series of meetings. We felt like that promise was going to be kept,” she said. “This is our history. This is our school. It was built for our community. And it’s time for us to reclaim the school for our community.”
Deja vu
For some of the community’s longest residents, the situation they’re facing feels a little too familiar.
Brooklyn, which was located in uptown Charlotte’s Second Ward, was a predominantly-Black thriving community that was razed in the name of “urban renewal” in the 1960s and 70s, displacing the thousands of Black Charlotteans who called it home and had businesses there.
During urban renewal, Cherry was one of the only Black neighborhoods spared in Charlotte because “its housing was some of the least substandard in the city,” according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission. Cherry became a bastion for Black homeownership.
After the Morgan School, Rainey attended Second Ward High School, the city’s first public high school for Black students, which was demolished in the early 70s. She said she remembers being misled as a student and believed the school was going to eventually be rebuilt.
“They had a contest and everything,” she said. “We named it Metropolitan High School. And we never saw it.”
Minnie Thompson grew up in Brooklyn. It was there she made her first best friend, a girl she met in second grade that later turned out to be one of her neighbors.
Thompson and the girl engraved their names into tree trunks and sidewalks, vowing lifelong friendship.
But you can’t see those carved promises anymore.
“We can’t identify with anything over there now. We can’t find it,” Thompson said. “Because they came and bulldozed us out.”
In the 60s, Thompson’s family packed up and moved to Cherry. Though she didn’t attend the Morgan School, some of her family members did, and she remembers making new friends in the neighborhood.
She and her friend, who moved across town, lost touch.
“When you talk about gentrification, we always get the short end of the stick. We lose everything,” Thompson said. “Coming to Cherry, I thought I had somewhere to call home. But here it goes again. It’s happening to me again.”
Their vision
The Cherry Community Organization has a vision for the Morgan School as the heart of the community.
They want to preserve the 10-classroom building and use it as a community resource center, where they provide classes on health and financial wellness. The CCO also wants to get the building listed as a historic landmark.
The group feels cheated, they said — locked out of a process they felt they should have been included in.
Charlotte’s Housing Justice Coalition, which is a community-led coalition that advocates for residents facing displacement, homelessness and unsafe living conditions, released a statement Monday in solidarity with the Cherry community to preserve the Morgan School.
Those in favor of giving the space to Arts+ say it’s still a good thing for the Cherry community, but the CCO believes the Morgan School’s use should be reserved for Cherry residents. They say they’re worried renovations would destroy the building’s historic value.
And according to a land deed dating back at least to the 1930s, the building must be used for educational purposes.
“I just thank God for the fact the school building is still standing. Entire neighborhoods have been wiped out in Charlotte. So much has been taken away from us,” Rainey said. “Your church and your school — those are the foundation of a community… so this could mean the destruction of the whole community.”
