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Concept
Piney Woods Country Life School
Summary
The Piney Woods Country Life School (or The Piney Woods School) is a co-educational independent historically African-American boarding school for grades 9–12 in Piney Woods, unincorporated Rankin County, Mississippi. It is south of Jackson. It is one of four remaining historically African-American boarding schools in the United States. It is currently the largest African-American boarding school, as well as being the second oldest continually operating African-American boarding school. Its campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020.
The Piney Woods School was founded in 1909 by Laurence C. Jones. Jones added the Mississippi School of the Blind for Negroes in the early 1920s, and in 1929, with the arrival of Martha Louise Morrow Foxx serving as principal, the Mississippi Blind School for Negroes was founded at Piney Woods. The school eventually moved to an urban location in Jackson, Mississippi.
Piney Woods was where the International Sweethearts of Rhythm were formed, by Jones, in 1937. The band included jazz musician Helen Jones, the daughter of the school's founder.
Other bands associated with the school included the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi and the Cotton Blossom Singers. Beginning in the 1930s the school also sponsored baseball teams as part of the fund-raising efforts.
The school was presided over for more than 60 years by Jones, until 1974 when Dr. James S. Wade became the second president. Charles Beady led the school for more than 20 years, and today the school is presided over by Dr. Reginald T.W. Nichols.
In 1954 Jones appeared on the This Is Your Life television show. During the show the host asked viewers to each send in 700,000, with which Jones began the schools' endowment fund, reported to be at $7,000,000 when Jones died in 1975.
Since then the school has conducted a number of notable publicity and fundraising activities. A variety of speakers have spoken at the school, including George Washington Carver, LeRoy T.
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