POMARIA, S.C. — County leaders want residents in Newberry County to treat Saturday, Oct. 17, as a day of remembrance for Hope School, the restored Rosenwald campus that once taught Black children in the Pomaria countryside.
The proclamation passed without dissent at the Oct. 7 council meeting. Organizers plan a public program at 11 a.m. that day at 1917 Hope Station Road, inviting families who built, attended, or later rescued the schoolhouse.
Hope School belonged to the nationwide Rosenwald effort that put thousands of classrooms across the rural South. South Carolina alone saw hundreds of those buildings; only a few dozen remain today in any usable shape.
Classes ended there in 1954 after district consolidation. Worshipers at St. Paul AME Church later purchased the site, neighbors poured years into repairs, and the nonprofit community center that followed has been open for more than two decades. Federal historic listing followed in 2007.
James Haskell Hope, who led state schools for decades, once conveyed the acreage for a token five-dollar price. Desks and a wood stove from the building later joined a Smithsonian museum collection in Washington that documents African American history.
Pomaria sits in southwestern Newberry County along Broad River Road, and Saturday’s gathering is meant to keep that rural story visible for the next generation.
