In honor of Women’s History Month, Historic Dorchester Academy will rededicate the Boys’ Dormitory as “Elizabeth B. Moore Memorial Hall” on March 8 at 10 a.m.

At the turn of the 20th century, Dorchester Academy in Liberty County was the leading private African American boarding school in Georgia. In 1866, formerly enslaved people with Reverend William A. Golding and later Reverend Floyd Snelson sought funding from the American Missionary Association to build the school. By 1890, it consisted of a 30-acre campus including Midway Congregational Church (United Church in Christ), a girls’ and boys’ dormitory, a dining hall, kitchen, laundry, and an industrial building.

In 1925, Moore was hired as the school’s first and only African American female principal. A Fisk University graduate and friend of famed sociologist Dr. W.E. B. DuBois, she brought efficiency to the school, encouraged parental participation, and expanded the educational curriculum to include art, music appreciation, and physical education. With the addition of a science department in 1930, Dorchester Academy became an accredited school and its graduates were sought after by recruits from many neighboring schools and colleges for further education.

Students came from all walks of life. Local people worked hard to earn enough money to pay for their children’s education. Some students came from as far away as Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, and even Mississippi. Prominent professional African Americans enrolled their children at the popular school. Moore’s parents, Rev. Dr. George Washington Moore and Ella S. Moore, an original member of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, enrolled her younger sister Sadie in 1927. Herman Alexander Sengstacke, a Savannah native and the half-brother of Robert Sengstacke Abbott, founder of The Chicago Defender, enrolled his three youngest children Mildred, Whittier, and Frederick Douglass in the prestigious school. Many had affiliations with the Congregational Church. Professor Sol. C. Johnson visited often.

Descendants of former Dorchester Academy graduates have been invited to celebrate the legacy of Elizabeth B. Moore. Select report cards from the boarding school era will be on display at the rededication ceremony.

In 1932, Moore suddenly died, and one year later, the beloved boarding school’s boys’ dormitory burned down. The current Dorchester Academy Boys’ Dormitory, a Georgian Revival brick style building, was constructed by the American Missionary Association in 1935 and dedicated in the memory of Elizabeth B. Moore, but her name never appeared on the building.

Dorchester Academy closed as a school in 1940 when Liberty County opened schools for African American students. The building experienced a renaissance in the 1961 when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made Dorchester Academy the headquarters of the Citizenship Education Program and later in 1963, met there with Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth to develop nonviolent direct action strategies for Project C for Confrontation, which is known as The Birmingham Campaign.

Dorchester Academy is located in Midway, just one of three Georgia cities on the National Civil Rights Trail.

The gathering this Saturday, March 8 at 10 a.m. will include the kickoff for the 25th Annual Walk To Dorchester, a fundraising event. For more information or to schedule a tour, you may call Dorchester Academy at 912-442-0018.