Savannah School was opened in 1951 in the “Savannah” community of Grifton, North Carolina.

 

When small, wooden frame schools for Black student popped up across the country throughout the twentieth century, one also popped up in the Savannah community Grifton, North Carolina. The year was 1951, and the site was right next to Savannah Free Will Baptist Church, so the school was appropriately named Savannah School. It housed Black students from the community in grades one through seven. Later it was moved to what became the campus of Savannah High School. In 1950, once the county started building bigger and better schools for all students, the first two-story brick structure that became our future home was built. This structure had eleven classrooms, plus an agricultural shop, cafeteria and home economics lab.

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​​Savannah became a union school for Black students in 1952 and served all students in grades one through twelve, with various community schools such as Heath, Gilbert, Mewborne, Whites, Jericho, Bright, Sand Hill and Grifton schools feeding into it. Rufus L. Flanagan was its first principal, and as the population expanded, so did the school.

In 1953, a single-story building of seventeen classrooms was added. Then, in 1956, four more classrooms and a gymnasium were added. A metal building, erected in 1965, provided nine additional classrooms, and, for a while, four mobile units were used to help with overcrowding.  

The last class to graduate from Savannah High School celebrated its commencement in 1970. The next year, Lenoir County re-organized and all the schools were desegregated. Our former Savannah High School became Savannah Junior High, serving grades six through nine, with Rufus L. Flanagan still at its helm. The next year, the sixth graders went back to Contentnea and Banks elementary schools, the two feeder schools. Mr. Flanagan retired, and Jim Henry Jones became principal of Savannah Junior High School. He served there from 1972 until 1981.

 In 1977, during Mr. Jones’ tenure, Savannah Junior High School housed the county’s development school, a framework that continued until 1996. In 1981, the county embraced the middle school concept and the ninth graders moved to North Lenoir High School and sixth graders returned to Savannah now creating it Savannah Middle School.

When the county decided it was time to build a new school to replace the 60 year old structure, Savannah’s campus was sold to Hugo Salvage Company. Students who would have attended Savannah now attended Contentnea-Savannah Middle School, located around two miles away on Ferrell Road.