DALTON, Ga. — Amid the inequities of the segregated South, Dalton native Patricia Patton Rivers recalls fondly her education during the 1950s and 1960s at the city’s tiny school for black children, the Emery Street School.
“Children were treated fairly,” she said. “We were taught a lot of wonderful values and morals.”
Nearly 50 years later, the building that housed the Emery Street School is the Emery Center, a cultural resource celebrating Dalton’s black history. The site also attracts graduates of the school for semi-annual class reunions.
The last reunion drew 150 alumni, Mrs. Rivers said, many of whom came from out of town.
“We have students who come back of all ages,” she said, noting that one alumnus was an Olympic sprinter.
The hurting carpet industry highlights the need to bring heritage tourists like these — and their dollars — to Dalton.
Margaret Thigpen, executive director of the Dalton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, advertises the Emery Center in the CVB’s brochure, saying that it’s the only historical center here focusing on the black experience.
“It really brings into light the African-American heritage that we have here,” she said.
Still, Ms. Thigpen wishes the Center — which operates Thursday through Saturday and by appointment — were open more regularly. “It’s not open every day,” she said. “We never know when our visitors might be coming through.”
For her part, Mrs. Rivers said the Center celebrates a minority in Dalton that doesn’t often get noticed.
Blacks comprise 7.7 percent of Dalton’s population, compared to 28.7 percent of Georgia’s, according to census figures.
Mrs. Rivers said people she has met in Chattanooga have said, “I didn’t know black people lived in Dalton.”
She wants visitors — and residents — to know what the Emery Street School was like. The first public school in Dalton, Emery Street opened in 1886 for the 263 black children who couldn’t attend the allwhite private schools.
The Center’s director, Curtis Rivers, said the Center is also dedicated in part to Civil War history, the Civil Rights Movement, the history of slavery, and African-American inventions.
Still, he said, “It really is about the school.”
TO LEARN MORE
For more information about the Emery Center, call (706) 277-7633
