Professor W.P. Locker

Until 1955 Stone County offered Black students nothing past eighth grade. That year the county built the Stone County Training School, which ran from kindergarten through twelfth grade and was renamed for W. P. Locker in 1959. It remained the county's only Black high school until 1969, when federal integration orders sent its students to Stone High and turned Locker into a middle school. Its principal, Needham Jones, a former Tuskegee Airman, was demoted to assistant principal; he sued and won, then retired rather than take the principal's job at Stone High. The buildings are now Stone Middle School.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Black Creek Wild and Scenic River — 14 mi
  A 21-mile black-water creek through De Soto National Forest, a national wild and scenic river since 1986, with white sandbars, bluffs and primitive camping.
• Mississippi Armed Forces Museum — 25 mi
  The state military museum inside Camp Shelby, where 750,000 soldiers trained for the Second World War, among them the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

More markers nearby

• Gulf & Ship Island Railroad — 0.6 mi
• The Stapp Sisters — 1.4 mi
• Stone County — 2.3 mi
• The Harvey Battle — 4.9 mi