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DocuSign Envelope ID:6FBOD2B6-B8D3-4136-A376-20FDC2D04FC7 <br /> Over the two-day event, 200 people crowded the senior center to view <br /> Jacquelin Liggins's black-and-white photos of Orange County's "colored" <br /> schools: Haith, Morris Grove, Ridge Road, Sartin, and White Oak, which were <br /> later consolidated to form Cedar Grove Elementary. The photo exhibit runs <br /> through March 20. <br /> The photos show these schools, once hubs of their community, empty and even <br /> falling apart, grown over with vines. <br /> County notes from 1936, when these schools bustled with children, reveal the <br /> disparity between the black and white schools' facilities. <br /> In 1936, of the 28 Orange County schools for African-Americans, all but one <br /> relied on wood stove heating, natural light and outhouses, said Peter Sandbeck, <br /> Orange County's cultural resources coordinator. Yet all of Orange County's <br /> schools for white students had furnace heat, electric lights and indoor toilets. <br /> `Quest for an education' <br /> The event's storytellers emphasized the African-American community's drive to <br /> seek an education, despite the starkly unequal conditions. <br /> "What I want to leave you with is this quest for an education, that was so <br /> burning in the hearts and minds of black people. ... That burning desire, that zeal <br /> is something we must continue," said Freddie Parker, Jr., N.C. Central <br /> University professor and former student at Central and Orange High Schools. <br /> Parker explained that even the one-room schools represented a long journey <br /> from when North Carolina slaves were forbidden to learn to read in 1830. The <br /> first punishment was 39 lashes across the back. The second time caught, it was <br /> death. <br /> "I tell my students all the time, if they're going to kill you if you're caught <br /> reading, there must be power in this." <br />