"On this late fall day, the chatter from a dozen kindergartners fills the old, one-room schoolhouse on the campus of Reed's Chapel Elementary. At first glance, they could be any students in any classroom at any school. But there is a difference.

Most of these students are American Indians, and they are gathered in the Indian Education guilding to participate in the Indian Education program at the last school in Washington County created specifically to educate the area's Mowa Choctaws...it is among Alabama's last vestiges of Indian culture despite the fact that it was created to mainstream its native people into modern society.

Around the turn of the century, Reed's Chapel Baptist Church leaders began teaching the Choctaws - adults and children - to read, primarily so they could study the Bible...The church eventually brought in teachers and missionaries to teach the Indians in a school on the church grounds: then the Reed's Chapel School was built in the 1920's said Priscilla Lewsi, church historian...

Four other Indian schools were in the area: Magnolia Springs School, Hill Springs School, Charity Chapel School and Pleasant View School...(By 1969, all of these Indian schools except for Reed's Chapel had been consolidated, or merged with other schools, as a result of racial integration.) As student enrollment grew during the 1930's, the Washington County School System agreed to employ some of the teachers at these Indian schools.

It wasn't until the 1940's however, that Reed's Chapel donated the school and its 5 acre campus to the county system - but only after the county agreed to hire all teachers for the school and to continue the mission of educating Indians.

Earley Reed had donated the land for the school about 70 years ago and since that time, four generations of Reeds - all Mowa Choctaws - have attended the school. They are among the 6,500 or so Mowa Choctaw Indians liing along the boundary between Mobile and Washington counties, from which the acronym, is derived. The Alabama Legislature formally recpgmozed the Mowa Choctaws as a tribe in 1979...

Calcedeaver Elementary School, built in 1946 for the Mowa Choctaws in Mobile County, is the only other Indian school in southwest Alabama...

Though integrated about 30 years ago, Reed's Chapel continues to serve a predominantly Indian student population.

About 56 percent of the K-6 school's 300 students are Indian, 27 percent are black, 16 percent white and 1 percent are Asian. They attend classes in three red-brick buildings and five wooden portable classroom buildings - one of which is used specifically for Indian Education.

And that is what makes Reed's Chapel different from other schools in Washington County.

Inside the Indian Education building, the walls usually are covered with American Indian artwork, but on this day near the end of the fall semester, the creations have gone home with the children who made them.

In the back of the room, tiny hands worked diligently to complete beaded Indian necklaces before the end of the half-hour cultural enrichment class.

Several still were practicing words in their ancestral Choctaw language...

'The number one comment I hear is that parents want their children to learn more about their culture,' said Loretta Weaver, Indian Education coordinator. 'They want their children to experience things that they were denied from learning when they were in school because there was so much emphasis on the white American culture.'

Mrs. Weaver, the Indian teacher said, 'Teaching the history of the American Indians - how they lived, their spiritual beliefs and customs - instills a sense of pride in her students that (should not) be lost'...

With a history reaching back almost 100 years, Reed's Chapel Elementary is one of the few surviving Indian schools in the state (of Alabama)." (Taken from an article in the Mobile Register)

Reed's Chapel Elementary represents the history of an indigenous people. It will preserve the cultural future of the Mowa Choctaws. As such, it is a living treasure, not only for the Mowa Choctaws, but for the state of Alabama. In the spring of 1997, therefore, because of the unique status of Reed's Chapel Elementary, it was selected as a pilot school for IAE's international telecommunication project and continuing programs.