Booker T. Washington Building
Booker T. Washington High School was Columbia’s first public high school for African American students. The auditorium building, which the University of South Carolina acquired after the school closed in the 1970s, is the only remaining structure of the original 4-acre school complex.
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📖 Booker T. Washington Building (African-American History)
Many bricks from the horseshoe have also come from the old Booker T. Washington high school, an African American high school during the time of segregation. The university still uses this building as a computing lab and auditorium for special events in place of the high school. The walls of the Booker T. Washington building are covered in African American history. Rutledge College is another horseshoe structure steeped in African American heritage. The South Carolina General Assembly acknowledged the need for skilled black instructors after the Civil War. Rutledge College, the first college constructed in 1805, housed the State Normal School for instructors in 1873, where African American instructors were trained.