ATLANTA — Booker T. Washington High School in southwest Atlanta unveiled a new historical marker to commemorate its 100th birthday.
Booker T. Washington was Atlanta’s first public high school for Black students.
Civil rights leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson as well as famous artists like Lena Horne and Gladys Knight attended the school.
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And now 100 years after opening in the fall of 1924, the high school has a new recognition and a new part of its history.
On Tuesday, Booker T. Washington became the 9th marker on the Georgia Civil Rights Trail. Local leaders, alumni, and students all attended the commemoration.
The dedication included the great-great-granddaughter of Booker T. Washington who said she now truly understands his legacy.
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“All of the graduates that come through, that go out into the world and carry his philosophies. I get it... I get it,” Dr. Erica Washington McDonald said. “He didn’t leave me anything but his name, and that’s more than enough.”
One alumnus, 98-year-old Tweet Williams, graduated with Dr. King in the 1940s.
He remembers the famous statue of Booker T. Washington and walking past it every day to enter the school.
“It means so much to us to try to motivate us to be someone in life and it was a great motivational thing and think this will be the same thing for these kids,” Williams said.
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