Last updated: March 10, 2022
Place
Scarboro Community Center
NPS/KLEIN
Quick Facts
Location:
Oak Ridge, TN
MANAGED BY:
Amenities
5 listed
Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto, Picnic Table, Playground, Restroom
During the Manhattan Project, all housing was segregated by rank and race. The African American population at Oak Ridge lived in segregated hutments, sparse, drafty, one-room wooden structures that did not include a bathroom. People living in hutments suffered through hot summer days and freezing winter nights. The hutments held an average of four to six people, and married couples were not allowed to live together.
After visiting Oak Ridge in December 1945 and January 1946, Chicago-based journalist Enoc P. Waters published two articles in The Chicago Defender, an African American newspaper. Waters assailed Manhattan Project administrators for not providing black school children with the same educational opportunities as whites, and exposed the harsh, substandard living conditions. The articles created a public outcry and effectively pressured Oak Ridge to develop better, more permanent living quarters for black residents, although several years passed before permanent changes took effect.
In 1950, Scarboro Village opened, providing an improved yet still segregated standard of living for black people. The new community included Scarboro High School with 2.5 paid teaching positions and volunteers who taught math, biology, and physics. In 1955, one year after the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision striking down segregation in public schools, 40 African American children enrolled at Oak Ridge High School, and 45 students began attending Robertsville Junior High School. The Oak Ridge school system was the first southern school system to end segregation. Although desegregation of the schools was a noticeable step toward racial equality, minority residents of Oak Ridge continued to struggle for social justice and equal rights throughout the civil rights era.
Continue Your Journey
The Scarboro community still exists as a residential community in Oak Ridge. The Scarboro Community Center, opened in the 1980s, is a centerpiece of the community, offering community events and athletics to the local population.