Join us Friday, September 5, at noon, for our Sandwiching in History tour of the Ouachita County Training School (now the F.O. Jones Christian Center) in Bearden.
Ouachita County Training School was formed in 1949 by the consolidation of three area Rosenwald schools. Black students were educated at OCTS for twenty years until in 1969 when it was closed and its students were integrated into the formerly all-White schools in town, 15 years after the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation ruling. In 1973, the Greater Bradley District Association, an organization of Baptist churches in southern Arkansas, purchased the former school campus as its headquarters and uses the OCTS facilities for a variety of ministry and community activities. The Ouachita County Training School Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.