By MEALAND RAGLAND-HUDGINS
Rutherford County Schools
For the first time in nearly 60 years, Holloway High School is able to display the photos of nearly all of its graduates dating back to 1932.
Holloway will host an open house from 4-7 p.m. Thursday to celebrate the culmination of its composite restoration project. Those who attend can see framed photographs of all graduating classes and hear recorded remarks, thanks to a partnership with Rutherford County Archives, Bradley Academy Museum and MTSU.
Principal Sumatra Drayton called it “a “passion project” that has been in the works since 2013.
The photos were scattered following the school’s closing in 1968, Drayton said, with several being stored at the Elks Lodge.
According to the Rutherford County Historical Society, Holloway High was dedicated December 1929 and built on the southern end of South Highland Avenue at the site of the Rutherford County Colored Fair grounds near downtown Murfreesboro. It was named in honor of E.C. Holloway, a white lawyer who pushed for improved education for Black students.
The school cost $20,400 to build and contained a cafeteria, library, and classrooms for 140 students in grades 7-12, according to the historical society.
The original building that connected both structures still at Holloway – the gym and the current building, once known as the annex – was demolished after the Supreme Court ruled segregation unconstitutional, according to historical records.
In 1964, Holloway’s ninth grade class was integrated with ninth graders at Central High School. By 1968, all grades moved to Central and Holloway closed. A Tennessee Historical Commission marker was added to the site in 2019.
A diorama of the Holloway campus before 1968, complete with football field, will be on display, Drayton said.
“This project is something we set out to do so long ago and now it’s mission complete,” she said. “Holloway was and still is a special place to so many people in this community.”
Notable graduates of the school include James Scott and Walter Swafford, who applied to attend MTSU following the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 that prompted the Supreme Court to outlaw segregation. It wasn’t until 1962 that Holloway grad Olivia Murray Woods was admitted and eventually became the university’s first Black graduate in 1965. Her husband, Collier Woods, was Holloway’s principal when the school closed.
Holloway High is located at 619 S. Highland Ave., Murfreesboro, and now serves as an RCS choice school for grades 9-12.
Click here to read more about the preservation process from Rutherford County Archives.