Mega-reunion will celebrate Pearl High School

This story appeared in The Tennessean on Aug. 8, 2002.

By Alonzo Weston
Diversity Institute Fellow

08.14.02

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Alice Epperson and Erskine Lytle didn’t simply enter the Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet School when they walked through its front door one day last week. They entered the past.

For a moment, the large brick building at 613 17th Ave. N. became Pearl High School all over again for the former schoolmates. Epperson, who graduated in 1962, could even imagine her old principal standing in the doorway.

"When you entered the school building, a statuesque gentleman with a neat mustache, pressed suit, starched shirt and tie was standing in the hallway with his hands behind his back,” she reminisced. “His name was J.C. Hull, and he knew every student.”

Lytle, a 1964 graduate, remembered the school song. “Pearl High, our dear old school, long may she stand, kissed by the Western breeze, stately and grand…,” his unwavering tenor echoed through the school gymnasium.

Epperson and Lytle are part of a 75-member committee planning a reunion this weekend that will be the largest celebration ever for former classmates of Pearl High, Metro’s oldest black high school until it closed in 1983 due to desegregation efforts.

Members of graduating classes from 1949 to 1965 will convene Friday through Sunday at the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt, 2555 West End Ave. Typically, at least one class holds a reunion each year to observe a specific graduation anniversary, drawing anywhere from 100 to 200 guests. At least 400 people are expected this weekend.

"This is the first time there’s been a mega reunion that’s incorporated this number of classes,” Lytle said. Activities for the three-day reunion celebration will include a golf tournament, tennis matches, a masquerade ball and a tour of the school. A Vendor’s Gallery, where participants can purchase clothing and other Pearl High memorabilia will also be available.

Famed old-school R&B crooners Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes will be the featured entertainers at a special dinner dance on one of the evenings. Music will also be provided by The Roger Williams Group. About 100 people who have registered for the reunion will be celebrating their 50th, 45th and 40th years of graduation, Epperson said.

The school has many more years of history.

When the first bell rang for Pearl’s opening in the fall of 1883, it was considered a grammar school. It took its name from the city’s first superintendent of schools, Joshua F. Pearl, and was located on South Sumner Street.

Pearl had a white principal and all white teachers roaming its halls until 1887. That year, black teachers came on board, students from other black schools in the area transferred there, and it officially became known as a high school.

The high school moved to 16th Avenue North in 1917, remaining there until relocating to its current location in 1937. It was designed by the black architectural firm of McKissack and McKissack and considered "one of the most modern, best constructed and well-equipped building for negroes in the South,” Linda T. Wynn wrote in "History of Pearl School" for an online publication at Tennessee State University highlighting Tennessee black history.

Students at Pearl won numerous academic awards and athletic championships through the years. The school’s expansive gymnasium/auditorium also was used as a site for many cultural events in the community such as the Ebony magazine fashion fair in the 1950s.

"We had a comprehensive program; we had business, tailoring, auto mechanics, masonry," Epperson said. “Pearl High was ahead of its time.”

When the school closed, it was combined with the predominately white Cohn High School under a federal desegregation plan. A new school, the Pearl-Cohn Comprehensive High School, was built on the former sites of Washington Junior High School and Ford Green Elementary, two other former black schools in north Nashville.

At the same time, what had been Pearl High became the Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet School. A historical marker was placed on the site in October 1992.

Lytle said he and others didn’t really need a marker to know their old school was special. This weekend, they will be gathering to celebrate the memories of just how special it was.

"My high school was just — oh, oh, even the wrong stuff we did was good,” he said.

There is room for more classmates at this year’s reunion. Cost is $150 per person and covers admission to all the scheduled events. For more information, call 876-0358.

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