Clarksdale High School (CHS) is the public high school of Clarksdale, Mississippi and a part of the Clarksdale Municipal School District. As of 2023 Clarksdale High School had about 450 students. About 96 percent were black, with whites and Hispanic students making up the remaining four percent.[3]
History
Around the time of racial integration, circa the 1960s, there had been plans to build a new consolidated Clarksdale-Coahoma County High School to serve all children in Coahoma County; plans were abandoned, even though the building was already constructed, because the officials wanted to maintain segregation in a de facto manner.[4]
After Clarksdale High integrated racially (sometime around 1970) the school administration refused to allow students to do a black history week, a frequent practice at schools for black people. As a result, 80 students walked out of classes in protest.[5]
Extracurricular activities
In the early 20th century the school band, organized by Simon Kooyman, won Mississippi state championships and was named a Goodwill Ambassador to the city.[6]
^Flowers, Judith Coleman (on behalf of the Carnegie Public Library). Clarksdale and Coahoma County. Arcadia Publishing, 2016. ISBN1467115827, 9781467115827. p. 72.
(*) The community college main campus and early college (formerly agricultural) high school are not in the city limits while one college building away from the main campus is in the city limits; Clarksdale is in the community college's service area (the city was in the service area of the Mississippi Delta Community College until 1995) Coahoma County Junior-Senior High School of the Coahoma County School District is within the Clarksdale city limits, but does not serve the City of Clarksdale
