Belton: Students learn from alumni of segregated school

Students in the Advanced Placement U.S. history classes from Belton High School got the chance Monday to learn from those who came before them.

Alumni of the West Belton Harris High School taught the students about segregation and the civil rights movement.

Before its closure in 1966 because of integration, the Harris campus was once Belton’s only African American school.

Dr. Lela Butler took students back to her days as a student at the school and explained what it was like growing up in a segregated culture.

For students, it was an opportunity to see what life was like in their community.

“Really it makes it eye opening,” student Zane Thompson said.

“(It) makes you take a step back and teaches you that it really happened in our community.”

The district said this is the second time teachers from the high school worked with the West Belton-Harris High School Ex-Students Association to organize this event.