Siloam School moves closer to home at Museum of History

PHOTO | JOSHUA KOMER

Siloam School, built in 1924 to educate Black students in northeast Charlotte, is moving to the Charlotte Museum of History.

Moving day is nearing for Siloam School.

The early 20th century school for Black students will be relocated, starting with today's roof removal, to Charlotte Museum of History as part of the Save Siloam School Project, a museum initiative that took six years of planning and fundraising for its restoration into a resource center for history education. Upon completion, the space will include exhibits about the Black experience in the 20th century and the Charlotte region’s history of racism.

The moving process is expected to take place later this month.

Siloam School, which opened in 1924, will be the only Rosenwald-designed school in Mecklenburg County devoted to history programming. The school was one of 813 such campuses built in North Carolina for Black students during an era of racial segregation by law and custom in the South.

An estimated 5,000 Rosenwald schools were built across the region and by 1928, they served a third of the South’s rural Black students.

Mecklenburg County, which had 26 Rosenwald schools, still has seven in existence.

Siloam School, which sits on its original site near UNC Charlotte, is on the National Register of Historic Places and considered critically endangered due to disrepair.  

A grand opening and homecoming celebration for the school will be held in 2024 on the 8-acre Museum of History property once the building is fully restored and exhibits installed.

This story has been edited to clarify the process of relocating Siloam School.

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