Jefferson School African American Heritage Center

Community members petitioned Charlottesville's city council to build it, and in 1926 Jefferson High School opened as the city's first high school for Black students — before that, Black children could attend only through eighth grade. The two-story brick building grew in four sections, the late-thirties addition partially funded by the Public Works Administration. It served as a segregated high school until 1951, became an elementary school, and in 1958 was at the center of the city's fight over school integration. Listed on the National Register in 2006, it reopened in 2013 as the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.