Phillis Wheatley High School: A Legacy of Education and Achievement in Houston's Fifth Ward
Phillis Wheatley High School, located in Houston, Texas, stands as a testament to the resilience and determination of the African American community. From its humble beginnings in 1927 to its current status as a comprehensive high school, Wheatley has played a vital role in shaping the lives of countless students, producing leaders in various fields, and contributing to the cultural fabric of Houston.
Early Years and Segregation (1927-1960s)
Phillis Wheatley High School opened its doors in January 1927 to serve Houston’s Black student population. It was the third all-Black high school in the city, alongside Booker T. Washington High School and Jack Yates High School. Housed in the former McGowan Elementary School building on Lyons Avenue, Wheatley served the Fifth Ward community. In its early years, Wheatley High School was one of the largest Black high schools in the United States, with 2,600 students and 60 teachers.
Despite the challenges of segregation, Wheatley quickly established itself as a center of academic excellence. According to William Kellar’s book, Make Haste Slowly: Moderates, Conservatives, and School Desegregation in Houston, Black schools in Houston often lacked the resources available to white schools. “The district offered advanced courses and special programs only at white schools…In addition, their libraries were ill equipped, and frequently they had to make do with worn, out-of-date textbooks.”
Despite these disadvantages, teachers at Wheatley High School provided a quality education to their students. An advertisement in the Houston Chronicle on December 31, 1927, listed Phillis Wheatley High School as one of several locations where local residents could attend night courses. Additionally, according to a report by the state board of education in 1936, Phillis Wheatley High School and its sister schools, Washington and Yates, were three of twelve negro schools in the state of Texas to receive a “Class A” rating. In 1949, the Houston Chronicle bragged on Wheatley students who earned “top honors in negro school tilts.” Of the students mentioned was a young Barbara Jordan. She had won the state championship in junior declamation.
As the student population grew, the school faced overcrowding. By 1950, attendance topped 3,300 in a school built to house only three-fifths that number. To accommodate the large student population, Wheatley High School held classes in shifts with only the seniors attending school during normal hours. In September 1950, HISD opened a new $2.5 million campus on Greg Street with a capacity of 3,500 students. The campus was described by the Houston Chronicle as "the finest Negro high school in the South," and had a 1,500-seat auditorium, a gymnasium, an industrial arts facility, and a swimming pool. The school district spent attention on Wheatley in order to promote the argument that segregated minority schools can be equal to segregated White schools.
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Jim Crow segregation rules prevented black and white schools from competing against each other in sports. Despite the nature of these social restrictions, Wheatley High School students found joy in friendly competition with other Houston area black schools. One such event was the annual Turkey Day football game.
The Desegregation Era and Subsequent Challenges (1960s-2000s)
Much like other southern cities, the white-led HISD board of education was slow to initiate desegregation efforts after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In Make Haste Slowly, Keller explains that aside from a brief period of “liberal” control from 1955-1957, the school board in Houston was controlled by “a powerful conservative coalition… [that] believed steadfastly in racial segregation and fiercely opposed any suggestion that the Jim Crow system should be dismantled.” This coalition used a number of tactics to delay desegregation for several years.
By 1965, despite some small efforts to desegregate, the black community in Houston was tired of waiting and held a one-day boycott of black schools in HISD. According to the Houston Chronicle, approximately 85% of black students in HISD stayed home on May 10, 1965. The article reported that of the 1,894 students enrolled at Wheatley High School, 1,794 were absent. Four students picketed outside the school with signs that read “Give Jim Crow Your Desk Today” and “No School Today - Better Schools Tomorrow.” Another article from the same paper claimed that each absent student equated to one dollar lost for the district. Wheatley students cost HISD nearly $1800 in lost revenue that day. It took another 19 years to desegregate HISD.
However, after a decade of white flight in the 1970s and an influx of new Hispanic residents, Phillis Wheatley High School experienced de facto segregation. In the 1970s Houston ISD had been desegregated. As the Fifth Ward as a neighborhood experienced a surge in crime, Houston ISD rezoned the Denver Harbor neighborhood, which had many White residents, to Wheatley. At that time the neighborhood was quickly becoming Hispanic. Many area Hispanic students preferred to attend Austin High School and Furr High School as they became the majority population at those schools. John Nova Lomax of the Houston Press stated that pride and discipline at Wheatley began to disintegrate in the 1970s, as counselors complained about a low level of morale among the students. The school abolished corporal punishment around that time, since White parents did not want Black teachers to physically punish white students, and Black parents did not want White teachers to physically punish black students. In addition, many of Wheatley's new White teachers, many of whom did not live in the Fifth Ward, had a lack of experience in teaching inner city Black students.
In 1968 the State of Texas held the first high school basketball playoffs. Then, the Wheatley team defeated the Thomas Jefferson High School team of Dallas, Texas by 85-80 in overtime. Historically many star basketball players moved on to Prairie View A&M University and Texas Southern University. Historically the American football game between Wheatley and Yates High School was among the most prominent ones in the United States.
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Wheatley's academic performance declined in the 1970s. In 1974 high school students had better reading scores than Wheatley students. In 1977 it declined to the bottom 11th. In 1978 HISD proposed using smaller classes, higher teaching salary, and a redesigned educational program to ameliorate Wheatley's academic problems.
In the mid-1980s, as crack cocaine became an epidemic in many inner-city neighborhoods, Wheatley students and teachers complained about security issues regarding some area apartments. In 1985 three youngsters walked onto the campus and shot an English teacher who had been conducting drill team rehearsals in the cafeteria. In 1986 a Hispanic student who had transferred from Dallas shot another Hispanic student in the face.
After Joan Raymond became superintendent in 1986, she considered closing Wheatley because of difficulties in making the school have acceptable academic achievement and safety. In the 1990s Wheatley had low test scores and high dropout rates.
A New Campus and Continued Legacy (2000s-Present)
In 2006, a new $35 million campus on Providence Street, designed by Wheatley alumnus and architect Willie Jordan, opened. The architect of the campus, ESPA Group, won an award for "Outstanding Architecture and Design in Education" by School Planning & Management magazine for the Wheatley campus. In 2012 Richard Connelly of the Houston Press ranked Wheatley as the fifth most architecturally beautiful high school campus in Greater Houston. The old 4900 Market Street campus was demolished.
The community and a number of alumni have made efforts to maintain the legacy of the school. During the school’s 80th anniversary in 2007, many gathered at a fundraising gala to recognize outstanding teachers, honor influential alumni, and raise money to support the school. One attendee whose grandmother, parents, and sister were all alumni stated, “No other high school has graduated so many African-American leaders, and the city of Houston has benefited from this rich tradition.” In 2012, Debra Blacklock-Sloan submitted an application and received approval for a Harris Country Historical Marker. The marker was placed outside the school in 2012 by the Harris County Historical Commission.
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In 2019, however, the school received a failing ranking from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the only HISD high school to receive that ranking that year. Around that period the TEA was attempting to replace the HISD school board, and it could possibly use Wheatley's failing grade as evidence that it should take this action. This was the seventh year in a row that the school had a failing grade.
In August of 2022, Phillis Wheatley High School learned that their school had earned a C rating from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), their first passing rating after a decade of poor academic performance.
Today, the demographic breakdown of the school is 50.4% African American and 48.5% Hispanic, with the remaining 1% a mix of white and bi-racial students. Additionally, 96% of the student body is considered economically disadvantaged and 67.2% are at risk of not graduating.
Notable Alumni
Wheatley High School boasts a prestigious list of alumni who have made significant contributions in various fields:
- Former Congressional Representatives Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland
- Pilot and aeronautical engineer Frank C. Mann
- Texas jazz musicians Arnett Cobb and Jean-Baptiste “Illinois” Jacquet
- State representatives Al Edwards and Harold Dutton Jr.
- The first African-American president of Brown University, Dr. Ruth Simmons
- Architect Willie Jordan
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