Memory Bank: Relaxing on the steps at Crispus Attucks

A group of students talk and read in front of an entrance to Crispus Attucks High School in this photo from the 1939 edition of the school’s yearbook. The school, at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and West 12th streets, just northwest of downtown, opened in 1927 as a segregated high school for the community’s Black population and remained so into the early 1970s. Due to declining enrollment, the school transitioned to a junior high school and middle school in the 1980s and 1990s, before Indianapolis Public Schools announced its return as a high school in 2006. The school boasts several notable alumni, including Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Oscar Robertson.

Sources: Indiana Historical Society, Crispus Attucks High School

Credit: This image is courtesy of the Indiana Historical Society. More images are available at images.indianahistory.org.