Qualla: Garnet High School https://qualla.com/garnet-high-school en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/garnet-high-school-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Garnet High School https://qualla.com/garnet-high-school Garnet High School: Introduction https://qualla.com/garnet-high-school/ Photo credit Pubdog (talk), Public domain. Twelve African American students in Kanawha County passed a high school entrance exam in the early 1900s, and West Virginia, then a strictly segregated state, had to figure out what to do. The answer was Garnet - named for Henry Highland Garnet, the formerly enslaved man who became a Presbyterian minister, an abolitionist orator, and the U.S. Ambassador to Liberia. The current Garnet High School building in downtown Charleston went up in 1929. For the next twenty-seven years, until West Virginia desegregated its public schools in 1956, Garnet was where Black Charleston children went for high school. Among its graduates was Oscar Holmes, who would become the first African American Naval Aviator in U.S. history, and the first African American air traffic controller.

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/garnet-high-school-wp/dnvf-garnet-high-school-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Garnet High School: A School Named for a Diplomat https://qualla.com/garnet-high-school/ Photo credit Pubdog (talk), Public domain. Henry Highland Garnet was born enslaved in Maryland in 1815 and escaped with his family at age nine. He was educated at the African Free School in New York City, became a Presbyterian minister, gave the famous 'Call to Rebellion' speech at the 1843 National Negro Convention urgin...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/garnet-high-school-wp/dnvf-garnet-high-school-a-school-named-for-a-diplomat.mp3 0:06 2 full Garnet High School: Inside Segregated Education https://qualla.com/garnet-high-school/ Photo credit Pubdog (talk), Public domain. Garnet was the only public high school for Black students in Kanawha County for most of its operating history. Black students from across Charleston and the surrounding county attended; some commuted long distances. The school had to do, for its community, what several majority-w...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/garnet-high-school-wp/dnvf-garnet-high-school-inside-segregated-education.mp3 0:06 3 full Garnet High School: Oscar Holmes https://qualla.com/garnet-high-school/ Photo credit Pubdog (talk), Public domain. Oscar Wayman Holmes Jr. was born in Dunbar, West Virginia in 1916 and graduated from Garnet High School. He went on to West Virginia State College, then earned a master's degree in chemistry from Ohio State University. In 1942, with the United States at war, Holmes entered Navy a...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/garnet-high-school-wp/dnvf-garnet-high-school-oscar-holmes.mp3 0:06 4 full Garnet High School: Desegregation and Afterlife https://qualla.com/garnet-high-school/ Photo credit SuperDalio, CC BY-SA 4.0. After Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and West Virginia's subsequent legal integration of its schools, Garnet High School closed as a high school in 1956. The building did not close, however. It was reopened as Garnet Career Center and later as Garnet Adult Education Center, ...

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Image: SuperDalio | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/garnet-high-school-wp/dnvf-garnet-high-school-desegregation-and-afterlife.mp3 0:06 5 full