85 Years of History

Today, Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School is one of the most elite high schools in America, consistently ranking as one of the best public schools in the nation by publications like Newsweek. MLWGS school boasts some of the top test scores in the state, offers 12 different languages, and has a reputation for fostering college-prepared students with strong academics. However, the school has not always been this way—beyond these metrics is a long and rich history.

MLWGS is named after Maggie Lena Walker, the first woman and African American to charter a bank in the United States. Although she grew up in poverty during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War, she was an inspirational community leader, entrepreneur, teacher, activist, and newspaper editor native to Richmond. Walker was heavily involved in church, school, and business, and avidly supported gender and race equality. She was on the board of trustees for groups such as the National Association of Colored Women and the Virginia Industrial School for Girls, and also took part in the Virginia Interracial Commission and was vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s chapter in Richmond. 

At the beginning of her career, Walker taught grade school for three years and stressed the importance of education throughout her life. “Our hope for the future lies within our children,” she said. “For, as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined.” 

To combat the restrictions of Jim Crow laws, she believed African Americans needed to be economically empowered. Walker founded the St. Luke Penny Savings bank, and later established the St. Luke Herald Newspaper and the St. Luke Emporium. The Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, formed after Walker merged her bank with two others, was the oldest bank in the country, run by African Americans for 103 years. 

To honor her accomplishments, Maggie L. Walker High School was built in 1937. It was one of only two all-Black high schools in Richmond city (the other being Armstrong High School), a result of the still-segregated school system. It became the first Richmond school to have a Black principal and Black faculty members. 

Since Armstrong High School and Maggie L. Walker High School were the only two Black schools in the Richmond community, they shared a special bond, always united in their rivalry. For over 40 years, Maggie L. Walker High School and Armstrong High School met on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and played football in a classic for the Black community within Richmond: the Armstrong-Walker Classic. The Classic gave many community members a sense of purpose and unity, especially within the school system at the time.

However, this tradition ended in 1979, when seven high schools in Richmond merged into three resulting from a decline in enrollment. Due to this merge, after 30 years, the Maggie L. Walker High School building was closed down and would remain unused for more than a decade. Along with Maggie L. Walker High School, Armstrong High School faced radical changes as a result of the merge, and subsequently, the building was torn down.

In the early 1990s, the Governor’s School for Government and International Studies began at Thomas Jefferson High School, where the space was shared between the Thomas Jefferson and Governor’s School students. Before the 1970s, Thomas Jefferson High School was mainly white but soon began to transition into a predominantly Black school. Meanwhile, the first Governor’s School class that went to school at Thomas Jefferson was made up of about 70 students, with only 15 of these students being Black. These two schools sharing one space was not effective nor sustainable for either school. The Governor’s School actually did plan on fully integrating to Thomas Jefferson High School, but protesting parents ruined this plan and the school had to look for another place to go. 

In the 1990s, Tim Kaine, who at the time was a City Councilman, proposed that the magnet school program be moved to the former Maggie L. Walker High School building. Kaine believed that restoring the building after years of vacancy would help reinstate civic pride within the community. Years later in 2001, the Governor’s School was moved into the former Maggie L. Walker High School building. Because most students came from surrounding areas, there were mixed feelings about this change and many residents believed that it did not prioritize Richmond students as the school once did. 

For the same reason, there were also substantial demographic changes when the school transitioned into a governors’ school. In 2001, only 7 out of the 149 accepted students were Black, while the school accepted 128 white students that same year. Such a decrease was not due to a lack of applications. Approximately 25% of all white students who applied got in, but on the other hand, a mere 4% of Black students who applied were accepted into the governors’ program. This was a dramatic transition from being a mainly African-American school with kids from Richmond to a mostly white school with students coming from numerous counties. 

Despite the origins of Maggie Walker Governor’s School being surrounded by Black history for nearly a century, the acceptance rate for Black students at Maggie Walker is the lowest of any demographic. In fact, for the 20 years that Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School has been operating, white students have and continue to be accepted to Maggie Walker at a rate that is almost four times higher than Black students. For Richmond City, the public school system that is predominately Black, admitted more white students this year than Black and Hispanic students in the past 5 years. In order to increase the diversity within Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School, the school board has attempted to target the culture of the school. However, this Strategic Plan has been criticized by alumni for lacking metrics and many alumni question how effective this plan will be. Many alumni are tired of waiting for significant change to happen and have spoken up about their experiences. Following the death of George Floyd in 2020, a group was formed called the Maggie Walker Black Alumni Network. Students and alumni in this group have both stated that the lack of diversity in the teachers hired at Maggie Walker heavily contributes to the lack of inclusiveness within the school. Most of the alumni also feel some type of resentment towards what the school has become and hope that the problem of lack of diversity can be resolved. 

Throughout its history, the Maggie L. Walker School has been through many difficulties and changes in order to become the place it is today. While the school is very different from what it once was, it is crucial to remember the deep-rooted history that Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School was built on and to not forget the legacy of Maggie Lena Walker nor her contributions to the Black community and this school.