Booker T. Washington High School

The East Woodrow Place school opened in September 1950 and graduated its first class in 1951. In 1973 the Tulsa district made Booker T. Washington the vehicle for its desegregation plan: it became a magnet school with no home neighborhood, the first integration program built on a historically African American school in a city divided north and south. Students applied from across Tulsa under a quota of 45 percent white, 45 percent Black and 10 percent other, used until the 2004-2005 school year. A new building replaced the 1950 school on that site in 2003.

What the plaque says

Booker T. Washington High School Tulsa, OK 1913-1950 Constructed on this site in 1913, Booker T. Washington High School served as the separate school for Black students in Tulsa. The first building was a four-room wooden frame structure. A sixteen-room brick facility with a basement replaced the original building during the winter of 1919. BTW High School was one of the few structures to survive the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. The American Red Cross administered disaster relief from the school, which served as a safe haven for the victims of the riot. Under the leadership of Principal Ellis Walker Woods (1913-1948), the school flourished. BTW High School has produced a significant number of scholars and citizens, who have made contributions to the state, the nation and the world. The North Central Association accredited the school in 1925-1926. BTW High School moved to its current location, 1631 East Woodrow Place, in 1950. The quest for educational excellence, enlightenment and advancement continues on this historic site, now OSU-Tulsa.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Greenwood Rising — 0.3 mi
  The history center at Greenwood and Archer that tells how Tulsa's Black Wall Street was built, how white mobs burned it in 1921, and how its people rebuilt it.
• Creek Nation Council Oak Park — 1.9 mi
  The oak on a south Tulsa hill where the Lochapoka Muscogee lit their fire in 1836 after removal from Alabama, the ceremonial ground from which Tulsa took its name.
• Philbrook Museum of Art — 3.0 mi
  Waite Phillips's 1927 Italian villa and its Villa Lante-inspired gardens, given to Tulsa in 1938 and open as an art museum since October 1939, strong in Native American art.
• Will Rogers Memorial Museum — 23 mi
  The limestone memorial and museum on the Claremore hilltop Will Rogers bought for his retirement, opened on his birthday in 1938 and holding his papers, his films and his tomb.

More markers nearby

• International Petroleum Exposition — 3.8 mi
• First Oil Well, Tulsa County — 4.5 mi
• Sapulpa — 14 mi
• Glenn Pool, World's Greatest Oil Pool — 14 mi