After Ballard Normal School

With the closure of Ballard, Macon now had two African American public high schools both located in the Pleasant Hill Community, Ballard High School on Forest Avenue and Hudson High School on Monroe Street.  

Hudson High School

In March of 1922, the Bibb County Board of Education announced that it was going to open a “Negro Training School”. Originally called the Monroe Street School, it was later renamed for H. J. T. Hudson, who was the principal of the first African American elementary public school. Hudson worked at the school, which opened in 1873, and was principal of Green Street School from the mid-1880s to the early 1900s.  The first Hudson graduation class was in 1926.  The school opened in 1923 with grades from 8th through 10th. In 1926, an 11th grade was added.  But the Board of Education never add a twelfth grade as it had in white schools. The school offered both normal and industrial classes. Examples of industrial courses offered were cooking, embroidery, and sewing for girls, and carpentry, cabinetmaking, wagon-building, masonry, and painting for boys. 

Hudson High school was described by W. E. B. DuBois as "poorly constructed of the cheapest brick and wooden materials," most the of the academic faculty held college degrees and the industrial teachers were Tuskegee Institute graduates. (Brown, page 106) Hudson was the greatest threat to Ballard Normal, as its opening caused a decline in the student enrollment since students were not required to pay tuition. 

Ballard High School

In 1942 the Bibb County Board of Education selected Dr. Riago Joseph Martin as the principal for the new Ballard High School.  Originally from Mobile, Alabama, Dr. Martin was the principal of a Central High School in Waycross, Georgia.  He was a strict disciplinarian, demanding, and receiving the respect of teachers and students alike. 

Dr. Martin continued on as principal of the combined Ballard-Hudson Senior High School.  He was the only person to serve as principal for both schools. After the intergration  of the schools, Dr. Martin would remain in the Macon community, serving on numerous boards, such as the Medical Center of Central Georgia.  He would later be elected to the Bibb County Board of Education School Board. 

By April 1946 the board was looking at the over crowding situation in the two schools  with around 1400  students.  The board made the decsion to renovate both African American high schools, but it  proved to be too costly and  both campus did not provided the acrage needed. The school board purchased property on Anthony Road. Ballard High School and Hudson High school would be merged into Ballard-Hudson High School.