Jennie Moore School

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In the 1950s, to avoid integration in South Carolina, a “Separate but Equal” plan was implemented. White and Black schools were improved thanks to the enactment of the state’s first sales tax. The East Cooper area, known as Christ Church, and separate from the Village of Mount Pleasant, was home to many independent Black communities with several rural Black schools. In 1953, five of these schools: Gregorie, Phillips, Long Point, Seven Mile and Four Mile, were replaced with a new $249,000 modern facility. The new school was located on Hamlin Road on ten-acres of the former Joseph Seabrook Estate in the Seven Mile community. The new school served 650 students, offering grades one through six. Mr. Calvin E. Thornton, former head of Four Mile school, was the first principal. The principals of the Black schools recommended naming the new structure in honor of Jennie Moore.

Mrs. William Moultrie Moore, secretary of the Moultrie School District No. 2 since 1935, had worked tirelessly for the old schools. “Miss Jennie” was known for her unselfish efforts to promote the educational, social, and cultural growth of the students in the Black schools. Mrs. Moore was born Jennie Verdie Edmondston in Mount Pleasant in 1882. She retired in 1956 and died in 1971.

South Carolina was the last state to desegregate public schools, and in 1970 Jennie Moore Elementary School was integrated. In 2013 the 1953 structure was demolished, and the Jennie Moore School for the Creative Arts opened in 2015.

The school site was annexed in two parcels to Mount Pleasant in 1998 and 2008. The historic and separate Seven Mile community remains in unincorporated Charleston County.