February 20, 2019
Wendell Phillips Academy High School, 244 E. Pershing Road, was the first all-black, public high school in Chicago when it was founded in 1904. Photo by Wendell Hutson
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Historic high school still opening doors for black students
When Wendell Phillips Academy High School was built in 1904, it became the first public high school in Chicago to have a mostly black, student population even though it’s named after a white man. The school is named after a Boston attorney, abolitionist and social reformer, who became the antislavery movement most powerful orator and, after the Civil War, was the chief proponent of full civil rights for freed slaves, said Timuel Black, a Chicago historian and civil rights activist.