A 1967 yearbook shows majorettes and the band in front of George Washington Carver High School. (Photo courtesy Charles Pyer Jr.)
To get to George Washington Carver High School near Chester, Bernard Anderson traveled more than an hour by bus from his home in western Chesterfield County’s Hallsboro neighborhood. Other schools were closer, but they weren’t yet open to African American students.
“I was never OK with the fact that I left home in the morning and went past a perfectly good high school 5 miles from my house, Midlothian High, and then had to travel another 20 miles to get to Carver,” says Anderson, who graduated in 1965. “We did it because we had to.”
Still, he says he had a good experience at Carver, something other graduates echo. During a recent gathering, he and other alumni shared memories of Chesterfield’s only high school for black students from 1948 to 1970.
Charles Pyer Jr. (class of ’67) recalled getting many rides home after football and basketball practice from Russell Philip West Sr., who had graduated years earlier, in 1951.
“It was the kinship of the community,” says Yolanda Baker, the late West’s daughter.
The alumni recalled William Albert “W.A.” Brown, the school’s principal throughout the 22 years it was open, as strict but caring.
“He knew your parents and grandparents,” says Jane Jiggetts Baskerville (class of ’61). “My recollection is the school was as quiet as a mouse when you were out in the hall.”
“You did not want him to have to speak to your parents about correcting you on any behavior,” says Alice Berry Pyer (class of ’67).
At about 5-foot-2, Brown “was short in stature, but people didn’t look down on him,” Anderson says. “People knew he was in charge.”
(Front row) Alice Berry Pyer, Jane Jiggetts Baskerville; (back row) Fred Haskins, Bernard Anderson, Charles Pyer Jr. (Photo by Tina Eshleman)
Anderson, a board member of the Virginia Interscholastic Association Heritage Association, initiated Brown's induction in June into the organization's Hall of Fame, supported by Carver alumni. The Carver alumni association also has established a scholarship in Brown's name.
In September, the group will unveil a Virginia Department of Historic Resources highway marker recognizing him and the school on Iron Bridge Road (Route 10), within view of the Carver building, which now houses the Carver College and Career Academy. The unveiling will take place at the site at 11 a.m on Friday, Sept. 20. Carver alumni will also hold their second Biennial Scholarship Fundraiser and Gala on Sept. 21 at Meadowbrook Country Club, and they’ll attend a reception the following day after a Sunday worship service at First Baptist Church Centralia.
Baskerville and other alumni point to accomplishments by Carver graduates in academics, medicine, sports and military service as signs of the school’s lasting impact. “In spite of, or in the face of, the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine,” she says, “we think that we got a world-class education, and we were competitive with anybody anywhere.”
