Mrs. Minnie Lilley Copeland, operated the Marion Greenhouses on South Court Street for more than 40 years. Minnie Lilley Copeland and her husband James P. Copeland established a home at 419 S. Court Street in 1901. She was a woman to be remembered for her interest in community affairs. She was an advocate of the establishment of a new school building for black children which opened in 1912 as the Douglass School. The school was located across the railroad tracks east of the greenhouses. At Mrs. Copeland’s request it was named the Douglass School in memory of a Black statesman whose name was so unfamiliar to local residents that the name of the school was usually misspelled with one “s” instead of two.

The school was named for Fredrick Douglass who was born in slavery in 1817, escaped his master in 1838, worked in Ireland and England until he earned enough money to return to the United States and purchase his freedom in 1847. Before his death in 1895 he edited an abolitionist newspaper for 17 years and helped raise two regiments of black soldiers for the Union in the Civil War. He also served as marshal and recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia and as U.S. Minister to Haiti.

The first brick Douglass School was destroyed by fire in 1926, and was replaced by another which served the black children of Marion until it was integrated with the other grade schools.

(Extracted from Glimpses of Life article by Homer Butler, written in the 1960’s)