Friends of Stevens School (FOSS)

The Friends of Stevens School (FOSS) was created in 2017 shortly after the school caught fire.  

The purpose of FOSS is to organize residents in the area to preserve Steven School's history and culture by developing a community learning center.

Originally known as the Dunbar School, the W.S. Stevens School first opened to grades 1-12 in 1929. With funding for black education scarce in the Jim Crow South, the African-American community in Quincy received a contribution from the Rosenwald Fund to build the school. In 1914, Dr. William Spencer Stevens was named the Supervisor of Quincy Society Schools. In this role, he sought to enlarge the reach of Dunbar High School and oversaw a four-year improvement project in the late 1920s. Locals were so pleased with Steven's work to install new classrooms and an auditorium in the building, that they voted to change the school's name in his honor. According to an article printed in the September 19, 1929 edition of the Gadsden County newspaper, the new William Stevens High School building opened with a reported enrollment of 450 students. Stevens High School continued to serve Quincy's black students until 1955 when the school board replaced it and moved the students and faculty into the new Carter-Parramore High School building.