The 1961 Moultrie High School for Negro Youth football team went undefeated and won the GIA State Championship. Row 4, from left, are James Edward Brown, Willie Buie, Georgia Turner, Cleveland Hunt, Robert Bearden and Eugene Watts. Row 3, from left, are Roosevelt O. White, Shelly Neal, James Davis, Robert Lee Daniels, Amos Walker, Jerry Ward and James Turner. Row 2, from left, are John Yearby, Willie Fred Daniels, Willie Robinson, Bennie Enoch, Willie Harris,William Thomas, David McKinnon and Robert Bethune. Row 1, from left, are Willie Charles Roney, Clifford Melvin, Freddie James Johnson, Lenard Upshaw, Robert Alford Jackson, Willie Gene Motley and Johnnie Baker. Line coach, far left, is Ralph Taylor. Head coach, far right, is A.F. Shaw.

MOULTRIE — In the middle of the 20th century, Colquitt County had two prominent schools: Moultrie Senior High and Moultrie High School for Negro Youth.

“We attended the school when it was known as Moultrie High School for Negro Youth,” said Dale Williams. “It was actually grades 1-12 until 1957 when C.A. Gray was opened and that became the elementary school for Black kids in Moultrie until desegregation. Those were the only two schools for Black kids.”

Dale Williams and the woman who’s now his wife, Avanell Williams, both attended the school in the 1950s and ’60s. They reconnected six years after graduating high school, and they’ve now been married for 47 years.

When they were in school, the total student body consisted of about 800 kids.

“Now, you have to remember, that’s for all grades,” said Avanell. “They were very small classes.”

Though it was small the roughly 12 administrators took their job very seriously.

“There was always an emphasis on education and where it could take you,” said Dale. “We were all enamored about how an education would better ourselves and the world.”

Avanell agreed.

“All we had were secondhand things,” she said. “Some books would have missing pages or were all written in, but we always took learning seriously.”

The parents and community of those attending the Moultrie High School for Negro Youth always sought to better the education of future generations, the Williams said.

“The community supported the school,” said Dale. “They would set up fundraisers and other things to help where they could. Our parents and grandparents really pushed it with the Board of Education.”

Even before the Williams attended the school, its educators fought for the educational rights of the students.

From 1940-46, The Moultrie High School for Negro Youth was one of 16 black schools in the American Southeast that participated in the Secondary School Study funded by the General Education Board and sponsored by the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Negroes.

At the time, the high school’s principal was William H. Dennis, who later went on to become the president of Albany State College, serving from 1953 to 1965.

“Not many high schools like ours can say they have principals who went on to become presidents of a college,” Dale said.

The Secondary School Study wasn’t the only unique experience to the Moultrie High School for Negro Youth.

“Our gym was built in the early 1950s,” said Dale. “Now, I can’t tell you about the girders and steel, but the bricks were laid from the local prison camp.”

The gym gave those students at the school an option most others didn’t have.

“We were one of the only Black schools to have their own gymnasium,” said Dale. “A lot of other schools would travel to us during their end of season tournaments because we had a place for them to play.”

Needless to say, the gymnasium was very busy.

“I played a lot of basketball in that gym,” said Dale. “And used it as a dressing room during football and baseball season.”

In fact, one of the ways in which the Williams grew their initial friendship was through basketball at the school gym.

“We became friends because we both played basketball,” said Avanell.

The gym was being used for so many different activities and sports that the athletic director had to get crafty with storage.

“We would keep our football gear above the stage between seasons,” said Dale. “There was a loft to the right when you’re facing the stage, and we would climb the ladder to get the equipment.”

The athletic director for the gym was Arthur Foster Shaw, who also happened to be the football and baseball coach.

“He served for 33 years in that capacity,” said Dale. “He died in 1965, and after that time they named the gym in his honor.”

During Shaw’s time at Moultrie High School for Negro Youth he was the head coach of the first football team to win a state championship in Colquitt County.

“I was only 10 when they won in 1961,” said Dale. “It’s neither here nor there, but we always joke that it was the Rams who won the first state championship, not the Packers.”

The 1961 Moultrie Rams football team went undefeated during their season and won the championship game 12-0.

“Lemon Street,” said Avanell with a giggle. “That’s who we beat to get the championship.”

The reason the Rams victory wasn’t recorded and was overlooked was simply because of the era.

“As with everything else at the time, sports were segregated,” said Dale. “William Bryant was not a part of the Georgia High School Association, like the white school. It was the GIA, Georgia Interscholastic Association. That’s what all the Black schools were a part of.”

Shortly after the gym’s construction, the Brown vs. Board of Education case in Topeka, Kansas, was decided by the Supreme Court on May 17, 1954, declaring that the segregation of schools based on race violated the 14th Amendment and was now illegal.

But this didn’t mean things changed instantaneously.

“We were given a freedom of choice,” said Dale. “Each spring they mailed letters to the Black students and they were able to choose which school that wanted to attend that coming fall. Either you went to Moultrie Senior High or you went to William Bryant High School.”

In 1959 the school’s name changed as Colquitt County began to integrate more. Instead of being the Moultrie High School for Negro Youth, it became William Bryant High School in honor of the school’s first principal from the 1920s.

“I opted to stay at William Bryant High School,” said Dale. “The majority of us who were athletes did. We didn’t feel there would be the same opportunity to participate if we left.”

During this short period between the name change and full integration, the Williams remembered The Moultrie Observer including a special section for the Black community.

“I can remember it as a youngster,” said Dale. “It was on Saturdays for several years. It was a single page stuck in there called the Community Page and was only sent to the Black community, of course we didn’t realize that then.”

This special page was the only place the Black community could expect to see their names in the paper, he said.

“Any football games or otherwise I would play in would be on that community page,” said Dale. “It would never show up in the regular paper. You couldn’t read about them in the sports section.”

With the passing of time, those inserts so special to the Black community have mostly been lost.

“Unfortunately, when we went to look for them they were destroyed.” said Dale. “The Observer did not maintain those inserts. Neither did the library.”

The final graduating class at William Bryant High School before full integration was 1970. The building was converted to a middle school.

“I graduated in 1969,” Dale said. “So, there was only one graduating class after mine before desegregation, but as soon as we heard the desegregation was happening and that everyone would be going to the same school some of us got together and wrote a letter to the local Board of Education.”

In the letter, the group of students implored the board to consider what they were losing with this sudden transition.

“Our concern was that they would do away with our mascot and school colors,” said Dale. “We made a suggestion to them that they not keep either mascot but rather create a new one. For the colors, we suggested doing either black and silver or maroon and gold to mix them together.”

They never heard back.

“We never got a written response to our letter,” said Dale. “Moultrie Senior High continued to have the same mascot and colors. That’s why the ram is so important to the Black community. It’s the only mascot I’ve known.”

The Moultrie-Colquitt County Parks and Recreation Authority, which now owns A.F. Shaw Gym and the surrounding area, have made sure to take the community into consideration with their renovation projects.

“Throughout the process we thought it would be nice to put the image of the ram on the wall,” said Maggie Davidson, the athletic director at MCCPRA. “We wanted to pay tribute to what was there before.”

Davis said she hopes the image will do more than honor those from the past.

“I hope people talk to their kids and explain why it’s up there and what it means,” said Davis. “So much has been lost from the generational gap since the high schools combined and we want to try and make sure we hold that kind of history through our facilities and allow those stories not to die.”

The ram on the Shaw Gym wall is now the only surviving symbol of what used to be the home of the Moultrie Rams.

While Dale was able to complete all 12 years at William Bryant, Avanell was not. After attending the same school for 11 years, she finished her senior year at Moultrie Senior High, which was previously the school for whites.

“It was hard,” said Avanell. “It was not pleasant having to make that switch for my senior year. There just wasn’t the camaraderie anymore that existed with this [William Bryant] group of people.”

The main school building at William Bryant High School served as a middle school for several years but was eventually torn down. The A.F. Shaw Gymnasium survived.

“Everything was destroyed,” said Avanell Williams, who was watching as the school was being emptied. “We heard about it and ran there. Everything was being dumped on the side of the road and taken away. We didn’t have the chance to salvage anything.”

Because of this only a few photographs and memorabilia remain of the William Bryant Rams during the days before desegregation in Colquitt County.

“The jerseys of my team,” said Dale. “I remember all the jerseys being thrown on the street then taken away. My basketball jersey that I bled on. Gone.”

Despite losing so much, the Williams try to keep the legend of the school alive.

“I’ve started my own history book about the school, and he [Dale] is the history buff,” said Avanell. “I’ve gathered what I can find, but so much was lost. Most of the big group pictures of the teams and classes, for example.”

That being said, Avanell has multiple folders and binders of anything and everything she can locate regarding that time period.

“The thing is they only produced so many yearbooks,” said Avanell. “They didn’t do it every year. They had one in 1956, ’62 and ’66, which was the last one.”

Even with the pain of losing their tight knit group to a sea of chaos coupled with not having their history record as it could have been, the Moultrie Rams didn’t let that divide them.

“There was such a large sense of community that was developed through all going to that high school together,” said Dale. “So much so that from 1990 thru 2018 we used to have a reunion every two years that folks would always come back for. That would be a grand time in the community.”

The Moultrie Ram RoundUp eventually petered out due to the challenges of organizing the event.

“We got away from it because individuals got older and it became harder to plan,” said Dale. “I’m 71 and I only had one class that followed after. So, you can imagine, we are all getting older.”

Though it’s harder to maintain those personal connections as time passes, what was gained during that era will never be lost.

“That ram is all I know,” said Dale. “It’s who I am.”