CENTENNIAL
BY BERNIE WOODALL The BEST BEST of the
In the 100 years of Lincoln Park Academy, one of the milestone events was the move in 1953 to its location on Avenue I and North 17th Street.
Lincoln Park Academy marks 100 years
of striving for academic excellence
By nearly any objective measure, Lincoln Park
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Academy is one of the best high schools in St. Lucie
County and the state of Florida.
Test scores and advanced courses have often spoken
of the resounding success of Lincoln Park Academy since
1923 when it began as a salve by the white school system to
parents who wanted something unusually rare for African
Americans in Florida at the time — a chance for their children
to go beyond the eighth grade.
In the century of its existence, Lincoln Park Academy has
evolved from a celebrated segregated school to a conventional
integrated one to an award-winning traditional magnet
school. It now has an International Baccalaureate program
JASON HOOK
rated in the top 15% in the country. Its academic story alone
is an important part of the history of Fort Pierce and St.
Lucie County.
What sets the school apart from other educational institutions
is its central role in the historically black section of Fort
Pierce, especially before public schools in Florida integrated
in 1970.
At a time when blacks had to go to the back of Burger King
to get a hamburger or use a back door and the balcony at the
Sunrise Theatre, African Americans looked to Lincoln Park
Academy with a sense of pride and dignity and as an avenue
to a meaningful future.
Its position at the pinnacle is shown by the fact that the >>