"The Hygienic School"{August 24,1880)

Started in Steelton,Pennsylvania the Hygienic School received its name from its

location on Hygienic Hill,at Bailey Street between Adams and Ridge Streets.Steelton newspaper Peter Sullivan Blackwell conceived of the school as a way to provide a quality education for the African-American community's children and give employment for African-American schoolteachers,who could not teach in white schools.
The school started as a night school in the basement of Steelton's Monumental A.M.E.Church and by 1890 needed larger more space for the expanding student body.One of the first
organized protests by Steelton's African-American population against the discriminatory practices of the school board was in 1890 when the board attempted to place the African-American students in an old,ramshackle

school.Peter Blackwell & Joseph Hill organized the American Protective Association to oppose the school's board's plans.The Association demanded appropriate schoolrooms be built for the community's African-American children,or that they be given separate rooms in the high school.A compromise was made when someone suggested that the two rooms in the Hygienic Hill School could be used.
The comment to education shown by Steelton's African-American community was found in the strong role of the African-American churches in support of
the Hygienic School.Graduation ceremonies for Hygienic students completing
the eight grade were often held at local churches.When Steelton's African-American citizens found that their children who persevered through four more years at Steelton High School were barred from joining the all-white
alumni association,they formed the Douglass Association.Hygienic School educators Charles F.Howard,Howard H.Summers,and Vernon L.James,and community leader Franklin Jefferson named the association for Frederick Douglass,with the published aims of encouraging education among the local
African-American community and the " metal and moral improvement of its members.The Hyienic School continued to have an all-African-American enrollment through the 1960's as the Supreme Court mandated integration of Pennsylvania public schools was instituted throughout the common wealth.
The building was totn down in 1974.