Somerville Colored School, Public School 3
The Somerville (NJ) Colored School (1894-1918)
In 1894, the efforts of Somerville’s African American residents resulted in improvements to their existing school building. A multi-year campaign, begun in 1891, challenged the town leadership’s routine decision to divert $550 of the $1000 colored school's budget to the white school. School leadership complied with public school funding regulations only after the county Superintendent’s 1893 report challenged the misappropriations. The school board, “authorized [$2,800] to purchase additional land adjoining the colored school, and built an addition to the [existing] school house,” in 1894.
Officially renamed, The Somerville Colored School, No. 2 (later called No. 3), the new building featured, “well- lighted rooms, with desks for 50 children in one room and 42 in the·other.” African American students, Paul L. Robeson included, were educated in the building until 1918 when the demands for resources during WW1 forced Somerville’s leadership to make the financial calculation to integrate all schools.
Paul Robeson lived and worshiped in Somerville New Jersey, between the ages of 12 and 20. The Robeson family relocated to Somerville in 1919 when his father, Reverend Dr. William Drew Robeson received a pastorage at St. Thomas A.M.E. Zion Church. The appointment to a large congregation with an established black community was made more attractive because of Somerville’s integrated high school. Somerville High School’s first African American graduate, Frederick H. Moore, Sr., received his academic foundation in the Somerville Colored Public School, No. 3 grammar schools. Dr. Robeson correctly calculated that Paul's academic strengths
and talents would be nourished at both schools.
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