Two hundred people, many of them alumni of Rosa A. Temple High School, turned out on a sunny Thursday evening to witness the unveiling of a mural assuring the former – and last – all-black, segregated school in Vicksburg will not be forgotten.

“It’s beautiful. It really brings tears to my eyes,” said 1971 Temple graduate Lawrence Minor. “Being here and seeing everyone who made the school as magnificent as it was – the students, the teachers and principals – it makes me wish I was back inside that school.”

The mural is the 25th at the City Front floodwall since the first was unveiled in 2002. A total of 32 are planned. The mural unveiled Thursday depicts the school, now Vicksburg Junior High School, and includes a portrait of the education leader for whom it was named. The school was in operation from 1959 to 1971, when Vicksburg high schools were desegregated. Rosa A. Temple served the school district in her native Vicksburg for more than 60 years.

Mrs. Temple, who was born in 1869, was 102 when she died in 1972.

“We had a hellacious school,” said Jim Stirgus Sr., Temple principal from 1960 to 1971 and later superintendent of Vicksburg public schools. “That really was an extra special time in my life. The kids were proud, well-mannered and well-disciplined. The teachers and faculty were dedicated and concerned, and we were as strong athletically as we were academically. I have not seen a group of people surpass them.” Students excelled in earning scholarships leading to professional careers and Buccaneers played university and professional sports.

Stirgus and many of the alumni on hand Thursday also paid homage to 1967 graduate Bertha Flagg, who played an instrumental role in helping the Temple mural become a reality. The original chairman of a committee formed to raise the $16,500 necessary to have the mural commissioned, Flagg died Dec. 22 at the age of 58.

“I’m certain she’s up there looking down and smiling, saying ‘there’s going to be a thrill on the hill,'” said Stirgus, recalling a popular saying among Temple students.

Temple graduates raised the $16,500 toward the school’s mural fund in 99 days – and without corporate sponsorships, bake sales or garage sales, noted Stirgus. The strong support by his fellow alumni for their alma mater didn’t surprise Minor.

“There is a simple reason why that school was so great – the men and women it produced. These men and women have pride, respect and class, and now they have a true legacy,” he said. “The schools today don’t produce these kinds of men and women.”

Joining Vicksburg Mayor Laurence Leyens and Alderman Michael Mayfield in unveiling the mural Thursday were 15 Temple graduates. Guest speakers included 1962 graduate and Vicksburg Warren School District Board Member Zelmarine Anderson Murphy.

About a half-hour into the ceremony, a northbound train made its way toward the crowd sitting and standing on the tracks, stopped and reversed back down the line.

“Obviously, this is the most influential school in Vicksburg history if it can stop a moving train,” said Leyens to a round of applause.