SHARING STORIES
George Washington Carver Museum showcases local African American history
For 28 years the students, faculty and staff of Phoenix’s George Washington Carver High School took the insults visited upon them by segregation and turned those slights around to produce excellence.
The school, which opened in 1926 as the Phoenix Union Colored High School, graduated people who went on to become doctors, lawyers, ministers and politicians, including the first African American to serve as mayor for an Arizona city. Its graduates included those who served the country with honor, including two members of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, African American pilots who flew combat missions in World War II.
Countless other graduates of the school (renamed for scientist and educator Dr. George Washington Carver in 1943) contributed to the community in less prominent but equally valuable ways simply by being productive citizens.
Now the former school is the George Washington Carver Mu
seum and Cultural Center and stands as a monument to those who were educated there between 1926 and 1954. It is a hidden gem just south of downtown Phoenix that shares the stories of the city’s African American community.
The school’s famous alumni
Among the many prominent alumni of the school are prominent Arizona political figures Calvin Goode and Coy Payne.
Goode served on the Phoenix City Council for 22 years. The Calvin C. Goode Municipal Building in downtown Phoenix is named after him. Payne, a long-time educator, served on the Chandler City Council from 1982 to 1990. When he was elected mayor of Chandler in 1990, he became the first African American to be elected to that office in the state. Payne died last year at age 90.
Ed Shivers and Ira O’Neal served in the group of pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, African American fliers who trained at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Alabama. Coincidentally, Carver was one of that school’s most prominent professors.
Carver High School’s history
The school opened in 1926 and was the only high school for black students in the state at that time. Arizona schools weren’t segregated by state law, but segregated schools were allowed under the “separate but equal” doctrine that was legal in United States schools until 1954.
The campus was built on a former landfill site, surrounded by industrial areas and warehouses.
In spite of its less than ideal surroundings, the school was known for strong academics (teachers were expected to have master’s degrees to work there) and top-notch extracurricular activities. According to Princess Crump, president of the museum’s board of directors, some prospective students were disappointed when the school closed.
“They say some students were looking forward to going to Carver just like their older brothers and sisters,” Crump said. “The students here excelled in all areas.”
The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ended school segregation in 1954, but parents of minority students in Phoenix (as well as other cities throughout the country) had been pursuing similar cases prior to that ruling. In 1953, Superior Court Judge Fred Struckmeyer Jr. ruled that segregation in Arizona schools was unconstitutional, which paved the way for integration and
the eventual
School.
After the building was no longer a high school, the Phoenix Union High School District used it for office and storage space. In 1996 a group of the school’s alumni purchased the building and began transforming it into a museum and cultural center. closing
Incredible statues
of
Carver
High
What you can see at the museum
The Carver Museum houses a permanent collection of artifacts and memorabilia to represent what life was like here when the school was open. Alumni and other community members have donated items including musical instruments, appliances, sports trophies and other objects that offer a window into the history of south Phoenix.
One of the first things visitors see is a large quilt that hangs in the front hallway. The quilt features squares designed in connection with the graduating classes of the school. Another hallway houses portraits of prominent alumni and staff, and former classrooms are now galleries that display rotating collections of artwork.
“We do pop-up exhibits that can change,” Crump said. “We encourage people to check the website to see what’s here.”
Several statues highlight the displays at the center.
In front of the building is a statue of the school’s namesake, Carver. Perhaps the most impressive feature are four statues contained in a courtyard that’s only accessible from inside the building.
The statues of four women are titled “That Which Might Have Been.” The pieces, created by sculptor John Waddell, represent the women that the four girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing might have become.
The murder of those four children was one of the pivotal moments of the civil rights movement. Waddell’s sculptures outside the Herberger Theater Center in downtown Phoenix are among the most well known artworks in the Valley.
The display at the Carver Museum features an audio component in which Waddell describes the work. The original casting of these statues is at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays.
Free, but donations are encouraged.
602-441-7516, www.gwcmccaz.org.
Phoenix. The statues at Carver are a recasting originally intended for display in Birmingham, but the city declined to exhibit them.
A work in progress
Renovation of the building is an ongoing project, so only the first floor is open to the public. In the future the governing board of the museum hopes to be able to open the second floor for more exhibit and meeting space.
The building can be rented for community events and meetings. Facilities include classrooms and other space in addition to a large multipurpose room that used to be the school’s gymnasium.
The ultimate goal is to restore other parts of the campus, including the former football field. The grand design for the center also includes building an amphitheater to host community events and performances.