ALEXANDRIA, VA – On the very grounds where Alexandria City High School now stands once stood a modest, underfunded school known as the Seminary School for Colored Children. Its legacy is deeply rooted in Alexandria’s African American community and played a vital role in shaping the city’s educational history. Over the years there have been stories in the media about the school, but some citizens are asking when will there be a real marker to memorialize what happened there, in a little building built on hope, hard work, and vision.
Background
During and after the Civil War, formerly enslaved individuals and free African Americans across the country fought tirelessly for the right to education—a right long denied under slavery. Despite the Union’s victory securing basic civil liberties, systemic racism and local laws continued to block access to quality education. In the South, Jim Crow laws legally enforced segregation, mandating that Black and white children attend separate schools—though these schools were far from equal. Faced with discrimination and chronic underfunding, Black communities often took education into their own hands, raising money and donating labor to build schools for their children.
Following the Union Army’s arrival in Alexandria early in the Civil War, the city’s Black community—led largely by pioneering women like Anna Bell Davis, Mary Chase, Jane Crouch, and Harriet Jacobs—began establishing schools at an extraordinary pace. Among the first were the Columbia Street School and Saint Rose Institute in 1861. The following year saw the creation of the First Select Colored School, Beulah Normal and Theological Institute, and the Leland Warring School. In 1863, more schools emerged, including Union Town School, Sickles Barracks School, and Newtown School, followed by the Jacobs Free School in 1864. Beyond Alexandria, African American schools sprang up throughout Northern Virginia: Freedman’s Village School (1863), Falls Church Colored School (1864), a school at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Gum Springs (1865), Snowden School and Mount Pleasant School in Alexandria (1867), Vienna Colored School (1867), Frying Pan School in Herndon (1868), and Jefferson School in Arlington (1870).
Funding the Seminary School for Colored Children
In the 1920s, news spread through the Black community in Alexandria that Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Co., was offering financial support for schools serving Black children—prompting local residents to begin raising funds to qualify for his matching grants. Prominent educator and civil rights leader Booker T. Washington, known for his work at the Tuskegee Institute, also played a key role in inspiring Julius Rosenwald’s commitment to supporting Black education..
The Rosenwald fund sent Alexandria $900. The community in turn contributed $1,050, mostly from its Black residents. A local man, Douglass Wood, son of William Wood, a former U.S. Colored Troops soldier, donated the land. The school was engineered “by and for” the neighboring Black communities of “The Fort” and Seminary/Macedonia. In 1927, after a quick build, the Seminary School for Colored Children officially opened its doors.
Located where Alexandria City High School’s parking garage now stands, the modest three-room building was a source of immense pride for the Black community during a time when systemic segregation denied their children equal access to education.
Life at the Seminary School
Learning to read and write wasn’t easy for students attending the Seminary School. The building had no running water, so they were forced to bring up water from a neighbor’s well. Many of them lived miles away and had to walk great distances to attend. In the image above, the branching trails that lead to the school were made by morning commuters…