Qualla: Lucy F. Simms School https://qualla.com/lucy-f-simms-school en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:07 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/f/lucy-f-simms-school-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lucy F. Simms School https://qualla.com/lucy-f-simms-school Lucy F. Simms School: Introduction https://qualla.com/lucy-f-simms-school/ Photo credit Strawser, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lucy Frances Simms was born enslaved in 1855, when slavery in Virginia was still the law. She lived to be 78, dying in 1934. In between those two dates, she became one of the most influential teachers in Harrisonburg. She taught for 56 years - first in private schools, then in the Effinger Street school, where she educated three generations of Black children in the city where she had once been owned. Four years after her death, when the city built a new and larger school for Black students on the same site, they named it for her. The building, now on the National Register of Historic Places, still stands at 620 Simms Avenue.

Read more: Lucy F. Simms School on Qualla

Image: Strawser | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/f/lucy-f-simms-school-wp/dnzf-lucy-f-simms-school-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lucy F. Simms School: From Bondage to Blackboard https://qualla.com/lucy-f-simms-school/ Photo credit Strawser, CC BY-SA 3.0. Simms was born on a Virginia farm in 1855. Emancipation came when she was nine. Like many freed people in the Reconstruction-era South, she pursued education with intensity - first as a student, then as a teacher. She attended Hampton Institute, the historically Black college in ...

Read more: Lucy F. Simms School on Qualla

Image: Strawser | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/f/lucy-f-simms-school-wp/dnzf-lucy-f-simms-school-from-bondage-to-blackboard.mp3 0:06 2 full Lucy F. Simms School: Building the School https://qualla.com/lucy-f-simms-school/ Photo credit Strawser, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Effinger Street school, which Simms helped establish on the former Hilltop estate of the Gray family, served Harrisonburg's Black children from around 1880. By the 1930s the building was outgrown. In 1938 and 1939 - four years after Simms's death - the city built a new larger...

Read more: Lucy F. Simms School on Qualla

Image: Strawser | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/f/lucy-f-simms-school-wp/dnzf-lucy-f-simms-school-building-the-school.mp3 0:06 3 full Lucy F. Simms School: Closure and Renewal https://qualla.com/lucy-f-simms-school/ Photo credit Strawser, CC BY-SA 3.0. Harrisonburg public schools desegregated in the 1960s under federal pressure. The Lucy F. Simms School closed in 1966 as Black students moved to formerly white schools. The building sat empty for decades. Like many former segregation-era schools, it carried meaning the city did n...

Read more: Lucy F. Simms School on Qualla

Image: Strawser | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/f/lucy-f-simms-school-wp/dnzf-lucy-f-simms-school-closure-and-renewal.mp3 0:06 4 full Lucy F. Simms School: Remembering Lucy Simms https://qualla.com/lucy-f-simms-school/ Photo credit Strawser, CC BY-SA 3.0. In recent years, James Madison University and local researchers have worked to recover more of Simms's life and teaching philosophy. An oral history project at JMU has gathered the memories of former students - now elderly - who recall her insistence on standards, her demanding w...

Read more: Lucy F. Simms School on Qualla

Image: Strawser | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/z/f/lucy-f-simms-school-wp/dnzf-lucy-f-simms-school-remembering-lucy-simms.mp3 0:06 5 full