T. J. Raney High School
T. J. Raney High School was a segregated, private white school founded by the Little Rock Private School Corporation on September 17, 1958. Students paid no tuition as the institution was supported by donations from the Capital Citizens Council and other private sources. The Little Rock Private School Corporation opened the school in the wake of Orval Faubus' decision to close all high schools in order to sidestep a federal desegregation order issued on September 12, 1958.
The school was named for local Pulaski County health officer Thomas Jefferson Raney, the private physician of Orval Faubus. Raney joined Malcolm G. Taylor, Ben Isgrig Jr., W. Herschel Goodman, J. C. Mitchell, and Mrs. Gordon P. "Willie" Oates as corporate officers of the school. The superintendent of the Raney School was W. C. Brashears.
Seven hundred and fifty students enrolled at Raney High School for the school year beginning October 22, 1958. Sophomores began classes on November 5, 1958, in the nearby Highland Methodist Church (now Hoover United Methodist Church) education building. The school remained open for only one year, graduating approximately 190 seniors in the spring of 1959. Little Rock public high schools reopened on August 12, 1959.
The school mustered both a basketball and track team. The school's team nickname was the Rebels.
The 1920s-era two-story brick school was located at the corner of Sixteenth and Lewis streets in Little Rock. The building occupied by the school was the former University of Arkansas Graduate Center, originally a Methodist orphanage. Other private schools that opened during the "Lost Year" (so-called because the four public high schools in Little Rock were closed) included Baptist High School and Trinity Interim Academy.
References
- Cynthia Howell, "T. J. Raney Class of 1959 Celebrate Their 50th Reunion," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 29, 2009.
- Cynthia Howell, "T. J. Raney High Stepped in While Schools Closed," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, October 22, 2008.
