Established in 1821, Franklin Academy was the first public school in the state of Mississippi. The first school building was a frame building about 20 x 30 feet in dimensions, one story high, with unsealed glass windows in front and long open windows with shutters in the rear, covered first with boards and afterwards with shingles. The current structure is the school’s fourth incarnation and was built as a project through the Public Works Administration under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1939. The school remained racially segregated until 1965, one year following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and ten years after the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. Franklin Academy celebrated its 200th anniversary in February 2021, dedicating the marble monument to commemorate its beginning. It served as a magnet school for Medical Sciences and Wellness until 2025.
