116 Cedar Green Road
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Last updated on November 21, 2024
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The Central Augusta High School was built in 1959 as a black high school in Augusta County. Due to overcrowding and neglect in the current black schools, parents advocated for a new and bigger school and improvements. The matter was pushed aside by the school board for years, likely due to the decline in the African American population. However, at the time, there were only two schools in Augusta County, with 279 students in grades one through six and 104 students in grades seven through nine, with no high school. The two schools were the Augusta County Training School and the New Hope Elementary School. In 1959, a new black elementary school, Oak Grove, was built in the Oak Grove community in northeastern Augusta County. In 1960, the school board approved the construction of Central Augusta High School at Cedar Green. The new black high school, which cost $455,000, had a gymnasium, cafetorium, home economics department, science labs, a business department, library, and seven classrooms. Central Augusta High School opened in September 1961. The former Augusta County Training School reverted to an elementary school and was renamed Cedar Green Elementary School. Now, the county has three black schools. However, the schools were underfunded compared to the white schools, and the black teachers had to fight for equal pay as their white peers. Central Augusta High School remained open until desegregation in 1966. Ninety-two students graduate from Central Augusta High School over five years of operation. The school building became the Beverley Manor Intermediate School, which had both black and white seventh and eighth graders, and then became the Beverley Manor Elementary School, which closed in 2017.
