William Penn High School, also known as High Point Normal & Industrial Institute, is a historic

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

for African-American students located at High Point,

Guilford County, North Carolina Guilford County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population is 541,299, making it the third-most populous county in North Carolina. The county seat, and largest municipality, is Greensboro. Si ...

. The high school building was built in 1910–1911, and enlarged and renovated in 1929–1930. It is a two-story, 12 classroom

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...

style brick building. It has a projecting three-bay entrance pavilion. Two other buildings associated with the High Point Normal & Industrial Institute are on the property. The Institute was established by

Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...

in 1891. They were built about 1910 and are a gable end frame structure sheathed in corrugated metal with a distinctive

monitor roof A monitor in architecture is a raised structure running along the ridge of a double-pitched roof, with its own roof running parallel with the main roof. The long sides of monitors usually contain clerestory windows or louvers to light or ventila ...

and a brick building with a low pitched roof. The school closed in 1968 and was re-opened in 2003 as an arts

magnet high school In the U.S. education system, magnet schools are public schools with specialized courses or curricula. "Magnet" refers to how the schools draw students from across the normal boundaries defined by authorities (usually school boards) as school ...

, Penn-Griffin School for the Arts. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1978.

Notable alumni

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of br ...

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jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

saxophonist and composer *

Gwendolyn Ann Magee Gwendolyn (Gwen) Ann Magee (August 31, 1943 – April 27, 2011) was an African-American fiber artist. Learning to quilt in the middle of her life, Magee quickly became known in the world of fiber art for her abstract and narrative quilts depicting ...

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African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

fiber artist Fiber art (fibre art in British spelling) refers to fine art whose material consists of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as Cloth, fabric or yarn. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labor on the part of the art ...

References

African-American history of North Carolina Buildings and structures in High Point, North Carolina High schools in North Carolina School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Colonial Revival architecture in North Carolina School buildings completed in 1911 Schools in Guilford County, North Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Guilford County, North Carolina 1911 establishments in North Carolina {{GuilfordCountyNC-NRHP-stub