Alumni of first Black public high school in US vow to keep it standing

Saying that "we're going to get this done," supporters of the old Peabody High School in Petersburg have vowed to fight to keep the first public high school for Black students in the nation viable and out of the crosshairs of potential demolition.

"Everything on this ground, on this complex, is historic," Julian Greene Jr., chair of the Peabody Academic Learning & Development Center, told a group of alumni on a warm morning Sept. 20 in front of the century-old complex. "Everything. That means we're not going to allow any kind of lofts here. This is going to be done for us."

With the guidance of the Virginia Department of Historical Resources, PALDC and the Peabody High School National Alumni Association are ramping up efforts to convert the old school into a nucleus of Black culture and