Dorchester Academy, African-American school and museum in Midway, US.
Dorchester Academy is a former school campus and museum at the corner of Lewis Fraser Road and East Oglethorpe Highway, just west of Midway's city hall. The campus wraps around Midway Congregational Church. A small concrete-block cottage facing the highway houses the museum, and behind it stands the two-story Georgian Revival boys' dormitory, the only building to survive the academy's 1940 closure.
The school was founded in 1869 by the American Missionary Association and offered teaching to freed African-Americans after the Civil War. It closed in 1940 after educating generations of students, but the grounds later became a training site for civil rights work.
The site shows how education became a place of resistance and hope for African-American communities. Visitors can see how spaces were used by activists to encourage people to claim their rights.
The museum is accessible by a rural road and can be visited on certain days and times when it is open. Visitors should call ahead to confirm exact hours and check if a guided tour is available.
The only building to survive the academy's 1940 closure is the 1935 Georgian Revival boys' dormitory, which became the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Citizenship Education Program from 1961 to 1970. The program was overseen by Septima Poinsette Clark, whom Martin Luther King Jr. called the "mother of the movement."
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