The original Lucy Addison High School, built in 1928 as a segregated high school for Black Roanokers, is one of nine historic places recently listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register (VLR) following approval by the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Board of Historic Resources on June 12, 2025. In addition, the Board approved a highway marker for Lucy Addison, the school’s namesake, that will be installed in front of the building.
Lucy Addison High School was built in 1928 at 40 Douglass Ave. NW as the City of Roanoke’s first high school specifically designed to serve Black students during the period of racial segregation in Virginia’s public schools. Named for the pioneering Black educator Lucy Addison, the school represented a significant investment by city leaders in the education of local African American students and was touted as a standard-bearer in Virginia at the time for its high school training programs for Black youth.
Following the opening of a new Lucy Addison High School on 5th Street in 1952 (now Lucy Addison Middle School), the original building was renamed Booker T. Washington Junior High. After integration in 1971, the school building was used as Roanoke City Public Schools’ administrative offices until 2025. Starting July 1, it will serve as the school division’s Community Empowerment Center at Booker T. Washington.
The VLR is the commonwealth’s official list of places of historic, architectural, archaeological, and cultural significance. The Department of Historic Resources (DHR) will forward the documentation for the newly listed VLR sites to the National Park Service for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. Listing a property in the state or national registers is honorary and sets no restrictions on what owners may do with their property. The designation is foremost an invitation to learn about and experience authentic and significant places in Virginia’s history.
The Board also approved a historical marker to educate the public about Miss Addison, a pioneering educator who served as the principal of the Harrison School, Roanoke’s first Black high school. The marker, which will be installed at the corner of Burrell Street and Orange Avenue at the base of the original Lucy Addison High School property, will include the following text:
Lucy Addison (1861-1937)
Lucy Addison, a pioneering educator who served Black students in Roanoke for 41 years, was born in Fauquier Co. to enslaved parents. Educated in Philadelphia, she moved here to teach in 1886. She became principal of the Harrison School in 1917 and expanded its curriculum beyond grade eight, creating Roanoke’s first four-year Black high school. Accredited in 1925, this was among the largest schools for Black students in VA led by a woman. Addison sat on the board of nearby Burrell Memorial Hospital and of the Industrial Home School for Colored Girls in Hanover Co. In 1928, Roanoke opened the 19-classroom Lucy Addison High School, the city’s first public building named for a resident.
The marker will take several months to manufacture, and a special ceremony will be held in the fall to install the highway marker. DHR creates markers not to “honor” their subjects but rather to educate and inform the public about a person, place, or event of regional, state, or national importance.
Roanoke City Public Schools submitted applications to the VLR and Highway Marker programs, with the School Board and City Council’s unanimous support, as part of commemorative efforts in advance of the opening of the Community Empowerment Center to remember the school division’s history and educate the public for generations to come.