The first Washington School, a two story wooden building, was built in 1869 by the  American Missionary Society on West South Street at the corner of McDowell. Professor Fisk P. Brewer, a missionary, was the first principal. The first teachers were white. In 1875 the school was reorganized as a public school. In 1916 people began to campaign for a high school for Negroes because Shaw University and St. Augustine's College had discontinued their high school programs.

In 1924 the new Washington Elementary and High School opened at 1000 Fayetteville Street. It is a two-story brick and stone Jacobean Revival style building, set above a one-story basement with thirty classrooms, an auditorium, a cafeteria and a library. C. Gadson Sayre designed the new building.  James H. Harris was the principal of this first public Black high school in Raleigh.   John Ligon served as a substitute principal at Washington High School.  It has also served as a sixth grade center and is now an elementary magnet school.
 
 
 

Resources:
Barbee, J. M. Historical Sketches of the Raleigh Public Schools, 1876-1942. Raleigh, NC: Barbee Pupils' Association, 1943.

Simmons-Henry, Linda and Linda harris Edmisten. Culture Town, Life in Raleigh's African American Commuities. Raleigh, NC: Raleigh Historic Districts Commission, Inc., 1993.