It was one of four high schools that served black students in the Pine Bluff area until the public schools were integrated in 1971.
In 1886 Merrill sold a two-story house and some adjoining land to the Pine Bluff School District, and donated money to African-Americans to remodel the house into a five room school.
Newspaper editor and publisher Jesse Duke was one of the people recruited to teach at Merrill School by Marion Rowlamd Perry Sr.[1] Part of the school later burned, and was restored by the Works Progress Administration in 1939.
[2] Dollarway School District (DSD) sent older black students to Merrill High, as DSD did not have its own high school for either black or white students,[3] until Townsend Park High School opened in 1955.
[4] Merrill won back-to-back National Championships in Lamar Allen's freshman year of 1932 and again in 1933.