PHOENIX — We’re taking you inside The Carver Museum, which was once George Washington Carver High School.
Built in 1926, the school was the only high school for students of color in Arizona.
Every room down here had a story to tell.
And they are stories that live inside these walls, inside these pages, and inside the hearts of students who once walked the halls at Carver – students just like Ruth Ann Payne Franklin.
This was the cafeteria, which I didn’t get to eat in until I got a job – because I couldn’t afford to buy lunch which was $0.35, explains Franklin.
Skimming through her 1944 yearbook is like flipping through the pages of history – Black history and Arizona history.
Franklin has spent most of her 95 years trying to preserve that history; she’s part of the Phoenix Monarchs Alumni Association, and thanks to them, Carver High School is now the Carver Museum.
Seventy years after it closed its doors, the embers of excellence that once illuminated these hallways are now shining a light on the school’s lasting legacy.
Franklin says that Carver was the place to be then, in spite of the way we had to get there.
Franklin started as a freshman at Carver in 1944. Arizona schools were still segregated. Carver was the first and only high school in Arizona built specifically for students of color, so even though Franklin grew up near Chandler High School, she could never go there, simply because she was Black. So instead, she’d make the nearly two-hour journey each way to Carver in Downtown Phoenix.
When I would get on that Sun Valley bus after I ran that two miles, the ladies on board would take a breath and they would say, ‘Oh! She made it!’
But things didn’t get any easier once the bell rang.
Franklin says the expectations were very high at Carver – math classes, science labs, even speech and debate classes – the administration aimed to make Carver a top-tier learning institution.
Standards were high even in typing class.
If you hit the wrong key, she’d tap you on the head, Franklin explains of her teacher as she giggles, reflecting on the memory.
But perhaps the most memorable was when a lemon meringue pie she made in home economics ended up being the recipe for a lasting love.
I had my books and my pie and all of my friends, we were walking together and up walked this group of boys and he was the one who came and said to me, ‘I want to take your books’…And so I gave him my books but told him he couldn’t have my pie!
Stepping into the Carver museum, you’ll see countless photos – each one unlocking a different memory. But more important than what you’ll see is what you’ll feel; the resilience, strength, and pride — the foundation Carver was built on and which runs through the veins of every student.
Franklin says at Carver, students learned they were capable of anything, despite what society was saying on the outside.
Carver is open to the public but you are asked to make a reservation first. To learn more about that and how you can donate, click here.
