Central Middle School

Central Middle School is a living reminder of the efforts to provide a quality education for all Galvestonians. Central was initially founded in 1885 as a high school before integrated schools in Galveston. Central was the first high school for African Americans in Texas. The aim was to further the education of African American students in Galveston and the surrounding area. African Americans moved to Galveston from all over Texas for better jobs, a stronger African American community, and to allow their kids to attend Central High School—one of the highest levels of education available for African Americans in Texas in the late 1800s. The school was initially operated in a rented building at the corner of 16th and Avenue L. In 1893, the school moved to a two-story brick building designed by renowned architect Nicholas Clayton, located at the corner of 26th Street and Avenue L. In 1904, the Galveston School Board authorized the construction of a library annex to the high school for the use of the local African American community. Through the next four decades, improvements to the building provided additional classrooms, science labs, an auditorium, and a gymnasium. The building where Central Middle School is housed today was built in 1954 to give African-American students an equal education to their white peers at Ball High School after age 14. When education in the city was officially desegregated, Central High School became a junior high school opening its doors for the first time to a more racially diverse group of students. It's important to remember how significant the legacy that is carried on by Central High School and the educational institutions in the decades that followed are to Galveston and the state of Texas. Central Middle School carrying the legacy of integrated schools and the first African American high school in Texas.