By MEALAND RAGLAND-HUDGINS
Rutherford County Schools
The nearly 100-year-old Holloway High School is celebrating the location and restoration of the composite photos of its original graduating classes, a project in the works for more than a decade.
Holloway hosted an open house Dec. 11, with graduates and other community supporters in attendance. Those who attended saw framed photographs of all graduating classes from 1932 to 1968 and heard recorded remarks from alumni, thanks to a partnership with Rutherford County Archives, Bradley Academy Museum and MTSU.
Principal Sumatra Drayton called it “a passion project” after learning the photos were scattered in places all over Murfreesboro following the school’s 1968 closing, including the Elks Lodge.
“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.”
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.
Holloway’s history: Click here to read more about the preservation process from Rutherford County Archives.
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 special treat for visitors was seeing the diorama of Holloway’s campus before 1968, which was on loan from Bradley Academy Museum.
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.
