Senior Graduating Classes
South Ayden High School opened in 1931 and started as a small twenty-eight classroom school and was the only fully African American high school in Ayden. In 1937, the first senior class graduated from South Ayden with its final class graduating in 1971. During South Ayden’s years of operation, there were a total of thirty-four graduating classes.
In this gallery, there is a collection of four senior class photos along with class rosters for all thirty-four senior classes from 1937 to 1971. Class photos that are included are from 1948, 1964, 1965, and 1966.
Like any new school, South Ayden started out with a small student population and had to build up its classes over time. South Ayden’s first graduating class was made up of only six students. Moving into the 1940s, there is an increase in the number of students. What is interesting about the senior classes from the 1940s is that there was no 1946 graduating class. This is due to a law passed in 1942 which added twelfth grade to all public high schools in North Carolina. During the late 1940s, graduating classes tended to stay in the teens like in 1948 where the class was only twelve students. In the 1950s, there was a significant jump in the number of students in each graduating class with most of the classes averaging around forty to forty-two students. During the 1960s, class sizes were affected by the baby boom from 1946 to 1964. The first graduating class of children from the baby boom is in 1964, and in this year the class size at South Ayden grows to fifty-eight students. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the number of students kept growing with its last few years in operation having its highest enrollment. Even though South Ayden closed its doors in 1971 and its student body incorporated into the newly opened Ayden Grifton High School in the fall of 1971 it was a school well loved by its staff and student body.
Senior Class Photographs
Class Rosters
Curated by Zoë Mitchell