New Bern resident asks Craven school board to preserve West Street F.R. Daniels Historic School

Cleopatra Harker Lawton told the Craven County Board of Education on Nov. 20 that more than 600 local residents support a plan called “Together We Stay” to preserve West Street F.R. Daniels Historic School as a museum. Lawton asked the board for an update on the proposal and outlined why she and others think preservation would benefit the neighborhood.

Lawton, who introduced herself to the board as Cleopatra Harker Lawton, said she is “here representing over 600 plus citizens of our city of New Bern and others who have petitioned you to save our first school for freed slaves, West Street F.R. Daniels Historic School.” She told the board she had learned researchers consider the town’s first white school to be a museum and said that, in a previous transaction, some land at H.J. McDonald School was deeded for $1 — a fact she offered as precedent for a low-cost transfer or preservation strategy.

“Are we trying to increase the crime rate? A museum there would improve that whole area,” Lawton said, referring to Craven Terrace, which she described as the neighborhood with the city’s highest crime rate and located one block from the West Street site. She closed by asking the board to consider the petition and report back on the status of the Together We Stay proposal.

The board’s presiding officer acknowledged Lawton’s remarks and thanked her for appearing. The board did not take formal action in response to the public comment during the Nov. 20 meeting; Lawton said the West Street Society for Historic Preservation (as a coalition) and a named coordinator, Patrick Hart, support the petition.

What’s next: Lawton requested a status update; no board response or formal timeline was recorded in the meeting minutes or on the Nov. 20 agenda. The board did not place the item on that night’s agenda for action.