Their goal was to instill rigorous Christian morals and a vocational education, with academic courses for black girls from kindergarten to eighth grade.

[1] The school was founded by Alice White and H. Margaret Beard, two white reformers from the Northeast who were associated with the reform-minded American Missionary Association, a group consisting mostly of Congregationalists which had been abolitionist before the American Civil War and afterwards supported black education in the South.

By 1886 they had moved to Montgomery, where White ran the school (on the location that is now 515 Union Street) and Beard was a faculty member.

[1] Rosa Parks was enrolled at the school in 1924, at first with her mother Leona paying tuition, later as a work-study pupil who cleaned two classrooms at the end of every day in exchange for attendance.

[2] Funding came from small tuition fees and from donations by philanthropists and foundations, and the school did well: in 1916 it had ten faculty members and enrolled 325 students.