Blanche Ely and Her High School

Until Blanche Ely High School opened in 1952, Pompano Beach’s African-American students who sought a high school diploma had to enroll in a high school in Fort Lauderdale, Miami or some other town. The new high school was the result of many years of continuing community pressure and the strong will of Mrs. Blanche Ely.

During the era of segregation, the myth was that the races were separated but were provided equal facilities. No one believed it. Almost without exception, black students were given inferior buildings and instructional materials. Black educators were generally paid less than were their white counterparts and had more students in their classrooms.

Exactly when formal education began in Pompano’s black community is open to debate. Some evidence indicates that there were regular classes by 1915, but clearly by the 1920s, there was a formal school for black students in Pompano.

According to long-time Pompano Beach resident Mercerlene Alexander Rutledge, the first school serving Pompano’s African-Americans was a two room, wooden building located in the 400 block of Hammondville Road. When this structure was destroyed in the 1926 hurricane, classes were held in Psalters Temple A.M.E. Church, located less than a block away. Unfortunately, the church was heavily damaged two years later by another hurricane.

Despite the discrimination and misfortune Pompano's black students had to face, the 1920s brought at least one fortunate change. In 1923 a young teacher came to Pompano. Born in the small central Florida town of Reddick in 1904, she would later graduate from Florida A & M College.

Blanche General Ely was a woman who was not given to deep self-doubts. She saw her role as more expansive than being an academic instructor, although she did not shirk that duty. Rather, she felt that she had to use her talents to provide children in her community the tools they would need to make it in a world in which many forces were at work to insure their failure.

Hers was a 24 hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year calling. Any number of her former students still recall that if Mrs. Ely caught you doing something you shouldn't be doing, anywhere in town, it didn't matter if school was in session or not -- punishment would follow.

Although Blanche Ely differed with Booker T. Washington in some areas, she closely followed Washington's philosophy of making the best of a bad situation and that the black community must develop, on its own, an economic foundation and social stability in order to move forward. No doubt, she was in agreement with Washington when he said, "Character, not circumstances, make the man”. She would be a force in the community until her death, seven decades after she first arrived in Pompano.

The Broward County Board of Public Instruction (School Board) budgeted for a new school in Pompano’s black community during the 1927-28 school year – it opened as the Pompano Colored School at 718 NW 6th Street. Mrs. Ely was selected to be the school’s principal. In 1954, this facility was renamed Coleman Elementary School, in honor of Rev. James Emanuel Coleman, pastor of Pompano’s Mount Calvary Baptist Church.

Prior to the Second World War, two other schools were established for Pompano’s black students whose families worked in the agricultural fields. One was located west of town off today’s State Road 7 and was known as the Hammondville School. The other was located in the migrant labor camp on Hammondville Road just east to today’s Powerline Road.

The burden that these African-American schools worked under can be seen by teacher-student ratios reported by the Board of Public Instruction in 1938. Pompano white schools collectively had one teacher for every 25 students, while the Pompano Colored School had one teacher for every 54 students. At the Hammondville School, the single teacher employed there had 67 students. In the fall of 1951, Pompano Beach acquired its second high school when Blanche Ely's lobbying for a new school that would be able grant its students high school diplomas was approved by the Broward School Board. At the insistence of the community, the school was named for Mrs. Ely. Over the years, she had not wavered in her commitment to providing her students with the best educational environment available and character-building.

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education held that schools that were racially separate were inherently unequal. Despite the court’s order, the Broward County School Board did just about everything it could to keep the schools segregated. Mrs. Ely did not object to separate facilities as much as she did the unequal resources provided to the county's black public schools. In 1957, the Broward County School Board attempted to transfer Mrs. Blanche Ely from her position as principal of Blanche Ely High School in Pompano Beach to a lesser position in Hallandale. Many were convinced that this was an attempt to punish Mrs. Ely for being so outspoken. The ruling was appealed all the way to the State Board of Education, which overruled the transfer.

By the end of the 1960s, it was clear that the county schools would have to integrate. The problem for Pompano Beach was that demographic changes and housing patterns made it difficult to keep two high schools open. Following the 1969-70 school year, Blanche Ely High School was closed. Most Ely students went to Pompano Beach High School the following year. Mrs. Ely and community leaders instituted a lawsuit against the closing, and the high school was reopened in 1974. When the school was reopened the name had been shortened to Ely High School. Although the School Board said the name change was to honor both Joseph and Blanche Ely, many in the community saw it as an intentional slight to Mrs. Ely. In 1999, the name was changed back to Blanche Ely High School.

Blanche Ely died on December 23, 1993, and is buried in Pompano Beach’s Forest Lawn Cemetery.