Sumner High School (St. Louis)
|Sumner High School|
The Charles H. Sumner High Building
|4248 Cottage Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63113
|Type||Public high school|
|School district||St. Louis Public Schools|
|Faculty||32.0 (on FTE basis)|
|Enrollment||576 (as of 2012-13)|
|Student to teacher ratio||18|
|Color(s)||Maroon and white|
|Publication||The Collegiate (defunct)|
Charles Sumner High School
|Location||4248 W. Cottage Ave., St. Louis, Missouri|
|Area||5.5 acres (2.2 ha)|
|Architectural style||Colonial Revival, Other, Georgian Revival|
|NRHP Reference #||88000469|
|Added to NRHP||April 19, 1988|
Sumner High School, also known as Charles H. Sumner High School, is a St. Louis public high school that was the first high school for African-American students west of the Mississippi River. Together with Vashon High School, Sumner was one of only two segregated public high schools in St. Louis City for African-American students. Established in 1875 only after extensive lobbying by some of St. Louis' African-American residents, Sumner moved to its current location in 1908.
Sumner High opened in 1875, the first high school opened for African Americans west of the Mississippi. The school is named after the well-known abolitionist senator Charles H. Sumner. The high school was established on Eleventh Street in St. Louis between Poplar and Spruce Street, in response to demands to provide educational opportunities, following a requirement that school boards support black education with the radical Constitution of 1865 in Missouri. The school was moved in the 1880s because parents complained that their children were walking past the city gallows and morgue on their way to school. The current structure, built in 1908, was designed by architect William B. Ittner. Sumner was the only Black public high school in St. Louis City until 1927, with the opening of Vashon High School. Famous instructors include Edward Bouchet. Other later black high schools in St. Louis County were Douglass High School (opened in 1925) and Kinloch High School (1936).
The St. Louis Public School Superintendent Kevin Adams went over a lot of options with students and parents about the problems of the school. He recommended that if Sumner made efforts and improved conditions they could continue to stay open. One of Adams ideas was to have Sumner alumni mentor current students, transfer troublesome students to different school, and setting up achievable goals for the school year.
Sumner High's mascot is the Bulldog. Sumner's 1969 basketball team won the Missouri Class L state championship and featured future NBA and ABA players Harry Rogers and Marshall Rogers as well as David Brent who was a 6th round draft pick for the Los Angeles Lakers. sports that are currently offered: football, volleyball, basketball, baseball, track and field, tennis, and soccer.
- Arthur Ashe (1943–1993), tennis player.
- William "Pop" Beckett, musician
- Chuck Berry (1926–), musician.
- Lucye Belue, principal of Kinloch High School from 1944–1974
- Luther Bogan, Mayor of Moline Acres, Mo.
- Lester Bowie, jazz trumpeter
- Grace Bumbry (1937–), opera singer.
- Baikida Carroll, trumpeter and composer
- Alvin Cash, musician
- Hon. William Clay (1931–), politician
- Billy Davis, Jr. (1940–), The 5th Dimension
- Dick Gregory (1932–), comedian.
- Robert Guillaume (1927–), actor known for portraying the character Benson DuBois on the ABC sitcom Soap and its spinoff Benson.
- Julius Hunter, television news broadcaster
- Ivan C. James, Jr., engineer
- Oliver Lake, musician 
- Robert McFerrin (1921–2006), opera singer and father of Bobby McFerrin.
- Wendell O. Pruitt (1920–1945) pioneering military pilot and Tuskegee Airman in whose honor the notorious Pruitt–Igoe housing projects were posthumously named.
- Harry Rogers, basketball player.
- Marshall Rogers, Former NCAA Scoring Champion.
- Tina Turner (1939–), musician.
- Margaret Bush Wilson, first black woman to head the board of the NAACP
- Roscoe Robinson Jr. (1928–1993), first black to reach the rank of four-star general in the US Army
- Olly Wilson (1937–), composer.
- "Sumner High School / Overview". Slps.org. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
- Staff (2010-07-09). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
- "Building Demographic Data". Mcds.dese.mo.gov. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
- "TRAVEL ADVISORY; Black History in St. Louis", The New York Times, May 10, 1992. Accessed December 11, 2007. "Sumner High School, the first school west of the Mississippi for blacks, established in 1875 (among graduates are Grace Bumbry, Arthur Ashe and Tina Turner)..."
-  Archived October 27, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
- "J'S THEATER: 130 Years of Sumner High School (St. Louis)". Jstheater.blogspot.com. 2005-06-14. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
- Primm, James Neal. (1998). Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri, 1764-1980. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society.
- "Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society : Charter" (PDF). Yale.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
- Dillon, Dan (2005). So, Where'd You Go to High School? Vol. 2: The Baby Boomer Years: 1950s-1960s. Virginia Publishing. p. 225. ISBN 978-1-891442-33-9.
- "Newsworthy-What Will Happen to Historic Sumner High School?". Historyhappenshere.org. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
-  Archived June 18, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
- "1973 NBA Draft". Basketball-Reference.com. 1973-04-24. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
- Weinraub, Bernard. "Sweet Tunes, Fast Beats and a Hard Edge", The New York Times, February 23, 2003. Accessed December 11, 2007. "A significant moment in his early life was a musical performance in 1941 at Sumner High School, which had a middle-class black student body."
- Wright, John Aaron (2000). Kinloch: Missouri's first black city. Arcadia Publishing. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-7385-0777-4.
- Dick Gregory , AEI Speakers Bureau. Accessed December 11, 2007. " A track star at Sumner High School, Gregory earned an athletic scholarship in 1951 to Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and became the first member of his family to attend college. "
- King, Chris (2012-01-26). "Oliver Lake as poet and painter - St. Louis American: Living It". Stlamerican.com. Retrieved 2013-10-16.
- Robert McFerrin Sr. (1921–2006), Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. Accessed December 12, 2007. "His father arranged for him to attend Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri. McFerrin intended to become an English teacher but changed his career plans after he joined the high school choir and received his first formal music instruction under chorus director Wirt Walton."
- Young St. Louis. Accessed July 28, 2008. "Wendell Pruitt was a Sumner High School graduate who was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen."
- "Margaret Bush Wilson: NAACP". Naacphistory.org. Retrieved 2013-10-16.