Brookvale High School

Lancaster Co. opened Brookvale High School to serve Black students in 1959, five years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared public school segregation unconstitutional. The building replaced the old A. T. Wright High School. The Crusaders Political and Social Club, a civil rights organization, met here frequently. In 1969 the Brookvale Warriors won the last state baseball championship overseen by the Virginia Interscholastic Association, the league for Black schools. Lancaster Co. fully desegregated its schools in the fall of 1969, and the Brookvale building became an intermediate school. Brookvale’s last principal, Dr. Elton Smith Jr., later became the first Black public school superintendent in VA.

Department of Historic Resources, 2025