Saint Philip's College

From its east-side campus the college reached across the city. In October 1945 it came under the board of the San Antonio Union Junior College District, now the Alamo Community College District. In 1987 it made its Southwest Campus, on land that had been part of Kelly Air Force Base, an official campus after years as an extension center. The Northeast Learning Center opened in 1996, and the Learning and Leadership Development Center followed in 1997 with the city. Its accreditors include the Federal Aviation Administration. In fall 2010 it counted 601 faculty and 10,828 students.

What the plaque says

Saint Philip's College St. Philip's Industrial School, founded March 1, 1898, was born of strong support from the Rt. Rev. James Steptoe Johnston, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, and the parishioners of St. Philip's Church. The church congregation, seeking a Christian-oriented education for African Americans, organized a sewing class that soon evolved into a vocational day school for black children in the rectory of St. Philip's Church at 306 La Villita Street. The program soon moved into a brick schoolhouse behind the church and was funded by student fees and private donations. Artemisia Bowden was hired as principal and teacher in 1902 and she immediately focused her efforts on expanding the school's curriculum, enrollment and staff. Bishop Johnston's successor, William T. Capers, participated in fundraising efforts. In 1911, the school became known as St. Philip's Normal Grammar and Industrial School and in 1918 the school moved to a new four-acre campus near this site. St. Philip's became a junior college in 1927, and through a tireless campaign waged by President Bowden it became a branch of the San Antonio Junior College System, offering liberal arts and vocational studies as a public school. When the U. S. Supreme Court's 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision prompted desegregation across the country, St. Philip's began serving students from all backgrounds. In 1998, 100 years after its founding, St. Philip's College reported an enrollment of nearly 9,000 students from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. The college continues to uphold ;the standards set for it by its founders and leaders. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Alamo — 2.1 mi
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
• La Villita Historic Arts Village — 2.2 mi
  The little village across the river from the presidio, where Cos surrendered San Antonio in 1835, rebuilt by Depression-era youth crews as a working crafts village.
• San Antonio River Walk — 2.2 mi
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.
• King William Historic District — 2.5 mi
  Mission farmland turned German merchants' quarter on the San Antonio River, renamed in World War I, then saved by a neighbor who restored fourteen houses, starting with his own.

More markers nearby

• Jacobs Chapel United Methodist Church — 0.4 mi
• Old Houston Road — 0.5 mi
• Hamilton P. Bee — 0.6 mi
• John Salmon "Rip" Ford — 0.6 mi