Tides of Time: Historic Watha School Preserves a Legacy of Sacrifice and Community

WILLARD, NC (WWAY) — Sometimes, the places we remember from childhood hold stories we never knew.

For one former kindergarten student, returning to an old schoolhouse in Pender County brought back childhood memories — and uncovered a much bigger story of sacrifice, perseverance and community.

The last time I was inside the building, I was a five-year-old kindergartener in the mid-1970s, just a few years after the school was integrated.

Today, the building has fresh paint and new flooring. But some things haven’t changed, including the mid-century light fixtures in the classrooms and a familiar mural of Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket and Pinocchio in the front office.

Behind the brick school is a small wooden building.

As a child, that’s where I ate lunch.

At the time, I had no idea the simple schoolhouse had a history that began more than half a century before I ever walked through its doors.

“When I get people to come here and visit this building, I try to take them back to 1921,” said Clifton West, president of the Willard Outreach Community Center.

In 1921, the building served as a Rosenwald-era schoolhouse for Black children in Watha.

The schools were part of an effort to expand educational opportunities for Black children in the South at a time when many communities had inadequate school facilities and resources.

West says families in the community made significant sacrifices to help keep the school going.

“My dad use to tell me stories about this building how they used to work out in the fields as a sharecropper and the little money they made, they gave half of it to the school.”

They didn’t have much, but they understood what an education could mean for their children.

Douglas Johnson, founder of the Willard Outreach Community Center, says his grandfather also helped raise money to support education.

“My grandfather, he sold sugarcane, he sold chickens, and they had different bake sales and fundraisers to allow them to bring some kind of resources together to educate their children.”

In the 1950s, the building was moved from Watha and repurposed as a cafeteria for Willard Elementary School.

The elementary school opened in 1954 as an “equalization school.”

For generations of children, the small wooden building became a familiar part of school life.

But inside, another kind of lesson was being taught.

“Somehow the cafeteria staff would make sure that everybody had an opportunity to eat,” Johnson said.

For children who couldn’t afford a cafeteria lunch, there was another option.

“They had this big pot of oatmeal that they would roll around to the different classrooms and we would enjoy that very comfort food that the cafeteria lady would bring.”

Those memories are part of a much bigger story — one that spans segregation, integration and generations of children who learned and grew there.

“And when we think about people that have gone on before us and made these places possible, we’re standing on their shoulders, we’re enjoying the benefit of their labor,” Johnson said.

After years of deterioration, community volunteers stepped in to restore the building.

Among those volunteers was the Old Skool Car Club.

Today, the restored Watha School is part of the Willard Outreach Community Center, where it is used for ESL classes, meetings and community events.

For those working to preserve the building, it represents the self-determination of a Black community that built and supported its own school when public resources were inadequate.

Char McClain, a Willard Outreach Community Center volunteer, says the building remains deeply connected to people who grew up there.

“When this school was no longer being used and the elementary school shut down… its the community that came in and said absolutely no –absolutely not, and if you spend any time talking with members of this community who attended elementary school in this building… or attending the school that you did and ate lunch here… it is not something they will see torn down. It’s very much a part of their community and they’re going to keep it that way.”

Now, another generation is rallying around the building.

The Willard Outreach Community Center is working to have the Watha School nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.

The organization says it needs between $2,000 and $5,000 to hire a professional architectural historian to complete the nomination.

A GoFundMe has been established to help raise the money needed for the consultant and support the preservation effort.

West says preserving the building is about making sure future generations understand what happened there.

“It’s a lot of history in here. I want them to feel that when they walk in the building… and also our pride to have this, here, in Willard.”

The Watha School is more than an old wooden building.

It is a story of segregation, sacrifice and perseverance.

And perhaps most importantly, it is the story of a community that didn’t simply believe in a better future for its children.

It built one.