Historical Marker
Victoria Taylor Walker
Baytown, Chambers County · Texas
Erected 2020
Walker trained at Prairie View, a school with an unusual start. In 1876 the Legislature authorized an 'Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Benefit of Colored Youth', and a commission bought a plantation near Hempstead for about $15,000. Eight men enrolled in 1878, and the college nearly closed the next year until legislators rechartered it as a normal school for training teachers. In 1934 it won an 'A' rating from the Southern Association of Colleges. Walker took her certificate there in two years and began teaching at Cedar Bayou in 1933.
What the plaque says
Victoria Taylor Walker Cedar Bayou native Victoria Taylor Walker began school at age four at Mt. Olive Baptist Church, which supported African American students up to eighth grade. With financial help from her family and church and with her own work, at age 14 Victoria was able to attend Prairie View Normal and Industrial College. She received her teaching certificate in two years and started working at Bayshore Elementary in the Anahuac school district. After additional classes at Prairie View she became the teacher at Cedar Bayou Colored School in 1933. She made two early requests: lengthen the term from six to nine months, matching the white school; and provide a water well so her students did not have to cross a busy road. The school board granted both requests. After Victoria married Sam Walker she continued her education, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in 1937. Despite a lower salary and insufficient resources, she taught her students each day and opened the schoolhouse many evenings to teach adults. In 1951, a new three-room school was built and the school board granted the community's request t? name the facility Victoria Walker Elementary School. In 1954, Cedar Bayou schools consolidated with Goose Creek, who closed the school in 1964 to begin the process of desegregation. Mrs. Walker and her students moved to George Washington Carver school in Baytown, which continued to be segregated until 1966. Mrs. Walker then taught at Stephen F. Austin Elementary, becoming the school's first black teacher. In 1971 she retired from teaching. In 2007, Goose Creek CISD named a new elementary school honoring the lifelong educator. (2020)
Where it stands
29.77323, -94.91572 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 10 miThe 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.
- Space Center Houston — 19 miThe visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
- Emancipation Park — 27 miThe Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
- Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 27 miTen historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.