As a historian and a dad, I often gently compel family members to traipse around the country looking for or at the historic sites I study. (Sorry, not sorry, kids!) On a recent trip through Waco, I wanted to visit the historic site of A. J. Moore High School, but that proved more difficult than I expected.
With roots stretching back to Reconstruction, A. J. Moore High School was a storied and vital institution for Waco’s African American community until its closure in 1971. An active alumni community keeps its legacy alive.
I was interested in visiting the school site because the final report of Rice University’s Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice, which I co-chaired, opens with a scene from the school’s 1967 commencement ceremony. That year’s Moore valedictorian, Gloria Darlene Oliver, became perhaps the fifth Black undergraduate student ever to enroll at Rice, which had just begun to desegregate a few years before.
I knew there was a historical marker for Moore High, but the excellent article at Waco History gave the school’s address on First Street, which no longer shows up on maps. Other pages I found, like this one, apparently confuse the marker’s location with the location of the A. J. Moore Academy (also now closed). Recent articles about Moore history from Waco’s local newspaper were behind a paywall, which is no help when the family is waiting semi-patiently on Dad to track down a marker.
Thankfully, the location for the marker given by the Texas Historical Commission is the correct one, and eventually I landed there. This may be a case where my preference for Duck Duck Go as my default search engine slowed me down, because a Google search also showed a useful map more quickly. Coincidentally enough, the modern A. J. Moore Academy was at 500 North University Parks Dr, while the Moore High School site is very close to 500 South University Parks, adding to some initial confusion.
Finally, I did find the marker I was looking for, though I had to walk past some “road closed” signs to get there. The site of the school that educated thousands of Black Texans from the earliest days of emancipation through the era of segregation is now ground zero for a major riverfront development project. Because of the construction, I was only able to see the site of Gloria Darlene Oliver’s alma mater from a distance; I marked the point with a red arrow in this photograph I took. It was a meaningful moment, nonetheless.
