The Presbyterian Historical Society (PHS) staff have recently processed the Boggs Academy Records (RG 558). Processing this collection aligns with PHS's continued work to document and uplift African American perspectives, experiences, and history within and surrounding the Presbyterian Church, like through the Society's African American Leaders and Congregations Collection Initiative (AALC). The Boggs Academy records came to PHS in two large groups, one in 1985 and one in 2009. The processed collection totals 24.50 cubic feet (26 boxes).
Boggs Academy was founded in 1906 by Dr. John Lawrence Phelps, a Black Presbyterian minister, as a Presbyterian industrial/elementary school for Black students in Keysville, Burke County, Georgia. Phelps sought to establish the school because no comprehensive program of education for Black children existed in Burke County due to Georgia's enforcement of segregation in public schools and inferior investment in education for Black children, especially in rural areas, during the Jim Crow-era. The Walker family (specifically Morgan Walker) donated two acres of land for the initial campus. The school was named after Virginia P. Boggs, corresponding secretary of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA) Board of Missions for Freedmen and fundraiser and supporter of the school. Phelps established Morgan Grove Presbyterian Church on campus (which would become John I. Blackburn Presbyterian Church after the original church was destroyed by fire in late 1920s). School operations commenced in 1907 within the church building until the Virginia P. Boggs Memorial Hall was constructed in 1910, becoming the main school building. Phelps served as administrator until his retirement in 1936. Boggs Academy became accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) in the early 1940s. In 1954, the John L. Phelps Administration Building was constructed through funds raised by Presbyterian Women's 1953 Opportunity Giving Project. The number of students boarding onsite at Boggs Academy increased in the 1940s. During school integration in the United States in the 1950s, Boggs Academy's educational focus shifted for it to become a private college preparatory school. This increased the number of out-of-state students enrolled at the school, including some international students. Graduation rates were high, and many students went on to colleges after graduating. In 1968, Boggs Academy and the John I. Blackburn Presbyterian Church opened the Boggs and Blackburn (B & B) Kindergarten and Day Care Center.
In 1971, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA) transferred ownership of the school to an autonomous Board of Trustees. From the early 1970s and onwards, the UPCUSA Board of National Missions (BNM) and its successor the Program Agency decreased its funding allocations to Boggs Academy. That disinvestment caused financial strain on Boggs Academy. Declining enrollment post-desegregation in public schools also exacerbated the strain. Though the school consistently fundraised and launched development campaigns, it closed in 1986, with its last class graduating in 1984.
The collection contains two series:
Series I, President's Office Files, 1926-1985, includes articles, budget materials, correspondence, inventories, minutes, personnel records, photographs (including photographic prints, negatives, and 35mm slides), printed ephemera (including brochures and leaflets), programs, newspapers and newspaper clippings, reports, a scrapbook, subject files, yearbooks, and other materials created, collected, and maintained by Boggs Academy presidents, chiefly Calvin E. Thornton, Yenwith K. Whitney, and John M. Ellis, and other staff. The materials pertain to administrative matters, the Board of Trustees, campus events and operations, commencement ceremonies, development efforts and fundraising, employees and personnel matters, and students and student life.
Series II, Student Files, circa 1920-2008, bulk 1940-1980, includes files of student records, chiefly arranged as alphabetical files. These files mostly contain educational records, including applications, course registration cards, report cards, test scores, transcripts, and various reports. Some files also include correspondence, medical and psychological records (chiefly counseling materials and physician's reports), and photographs. Some files are more robust than others. At the end of the series are assorted student records (these students did not have an original Boggs Academy student file folder) and incomplete student records.
Click here to access the guide to the Boggs Academy Records and read more about the contents of the records collection.
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