A few years ago, Ivan Orr was talking with his elderly mother when she paused in the middle of their conversation and started staring off into space.
“Yeah, you know, we used to go across the street to Peachie’s house for parties,” she said. “Yeah, Peachie Jackson. She taught at the school but she was retired before I got there.”
The school Orr’s mother mentioned was the Jefferson School, the city’s first — and for many decades, only — school for Black students…