Parker-Gray School
founded 1920· dissolved 1965
Alexandria’s segregated public school for Black students, named for John Parker and Sarah Gray, two early Black educators in the city. Parker-Gray operated as the city’s only Black secondary school from 1920 until desegregation began in the mid-1960s.
The Parker-Gray School opened in 1920 at 900 Wythe Street as Alexandria’s first public school building dedicated to Black students. It was named for John Parker and Sarah A. Gray, two nineteenth-century teachers who had taught Black children in Alexandria before the creation of a segregated public system [1] Alexandria Library Special Collections Manuscript . For much of its history Parker-Gray served as the only public secondary school open to Black students in the city; graduates who went further had to leave Alexandria to continue.
A replacement building was constructed in 1950 and operated as a high school until 1965, when desegregation under federal court order closed Parker-Gray High School and reassigned its students to the previously all-white T. C. Williams and George Washington high schools [1] Alexandria Library Special Collections Manuscript . The Parker-Gray name is preserved in the city’s designated Parker-Gray Historic District.
Associated places
900 Wythe Street — Parker-Gray School / Parker-Gray High School
1920–1965The Parker-Gray School operated at this site from 1920 through its closure as a segregated high school in 1965.
- 1937–1940
Black students from Parker-Gray — including older pupils preparing for college — were among those denied library cards under the pre-1940 segregation policy.
- 1974–1990
The Torpedo Factory Art Center became a regular venue for field trips from Alexandria's public schools after reopening in 1974.
Sources
- 1.
Alexandria Library, Local History/Special Collections, Barrett Branch, Alexandria, Virginia.
Manuscript
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