Other Names: Denton High School, Lockerman Segregated Black High School

Earliest Documented: 1928

Latest Documented: 1966

Tags: Segregated Black Schools

It was categorized by the county school board as Colored School in 1928. (Denton Journal). NAACP’s first woman president, Enolia McMillan, taught here before 1930.

This information was compiled by the Ridgely Historical Society:

Lockerman High School (1930-1966)

On June 10th, 1930, Sir Isaac Thomas, on behalf of the Parent Teachers Association of Denton, gave the Board of Education six acres of land in north Denton as a site for the proposed new black high school. The Lockerman High School was named after Joseph Harrison Lockerman, who was born in Denton in 1862. He earned teaching certificates for high school subjects and graduated from Morgan State University in 1886. At a recent reunion, several people interviewed said that in the school’s early days, parents paid for a privately owned bus whose owner, Walter Mosley, would drive their children to school. The students on the bus were all black.

Beginning in 1956, the Caroline County Board of Education had announced that county schools were open to all students on a freedom of choice. However, desegregation was very slow. Beginning with the 1964-65 school year, some white teachers were assigned to all-black schools, and in the 1965-66, seven black teachers were on faculties of desegregated schools formerly staffed by all-white personnel.

The month of April 1965 was designated by the Board of Education of Caroline County as a period for application for transfer. Its desegregation plan was accepted by the U.S. Office of Education on June 18, 1965. The report stated that the Board of Education was planning to desegregate the entire Caroline County school system by establishing geographic attendance areas as soon as the new senior high school was constructed. In 1966, after a newly-built North Caroline High School opened [near] Ridgely, the Lockerman High School became a middle school. Francis W. Gates was the last of the Lockerman High School principals (1961-66).

The mapped location is the present Lockerman Middle School.

This is a different location from the High Denton Elementary (MHT CAR-126).

The Lockerman Alumni Association is still active [2019].

Lockerman-Bundy Elementary School in Baltimore is also named after Lockerman and displays this biography:

Joseph Harrison Lockerman (1864-1923), a graduate of the Centenary Biblical Institute (now Morgan State University) who in 1911 became Vice Principal of the new Colored High and Training School for African American teachers (now Coppin State University).

Location Precision: Exact

Structure Exists: Modified

Primary Source: Denton Journal 1928-10-20/page-4

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