Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 06/18/2020
NRHP Listing Date 08/25/2020
NRHP Reference Number MP100005532
Constructed between 1929 and 1930 in Bath County on acreage where an earlier school for African Americans stood, the T. C. Walker School is one of two schools constructed in the county with assistance from the Rosenwald Fund, one of the most successful initiatives to provide universal schooling for black students during the era of segregation. Conceived by Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute, and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, the fund provided money to leverage other private and public funds to construct more than 5,000 schools for African Americans throughout the South, with more than 380 constructed in Virginia. For the Walker school, the Rosenwald Fund contributed $500 toward its construction, the county $3,595, and the black community $505. Based on plans supplied by the Rosenwald Fund, the building was a two-classroom school with banks of large windows and a movable partition. It operated until 1965, when the county integrated its public schools. Afterwards, the T.C. Walker School building sat vacant for a number of years before its conversion to apartments. By turns, it has also housed a hat and pocketbook factory, a photography studio, and an accounting office.
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Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: March 7, 2022
