Humes High School Alma Mater of Elvis Presley

Humes was a high school from the 1930s until 1967, then a middle school. Its Collegiate Gothic building, by architect George Awsumb, was listed on the National Register in 2004 for its place in Memphis education. Many students came from the nearby Porter-Leath orphanage, now a foster-care facility. Elvis Presley graduated in 1953. In 2012 the building reopened as a charter school run by Gestalt Community Schools, and in 2017 control was set to pass to Frayser Community Schools as Gestalt left amid falling enrollment and funding.

What the plaque says

Humes High School Alma Mater of Elvis Presley Within two months of graduation, Presley recorded songs at Memphis Recording Service. The following year he recorded at Sun Records, along with Carl Perkins (1932-1998), Johnny Cash (1932-2003), and Jerry Lee Lewis (born 1935). After achieving success, Presley was a frequent donor to the school. For many years, Presley continued his association with other Humes alumni, including George Klein (born 1935), who created and hosted WHBQ-TV's Talent Party, among the first television programs to feature racially-mixed musical groups: Red West (born 1936), who had a long acting career and wrote eight songs that Presley recorded.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sun Studio — 1.4 mi
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.
• Beale Street — 1.6 mi
  The street that became the center of Black Memphis after the Civil War, home to Church's Park, W. C. Handy, Ida B. Wells and the blues, now a National Historic Landmark district.
• National Civil Rights Museum — 2.2 mi
  The Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on April 4, 1968, kept as a museum of the civil rights movement from the nineteenth century to today.
• 1866 Memphis Massacre Marker at Army Park — 2.2 mi
  A privately funded NAACP marker in a small downtown park, placed in 2016, that names the May 1866 attack on Black South Memphis as a massacre.

More markers nearby

• William Herbert Brewster, Sr. — 0.3 mi
• Burkle Estate — 0.7 mi
• Isaac Hayes — 0.8 mi
• Manassas High School / The Cora P. Taylor Auditorium — 0.8 mi