Named in honor of Maggie Lena Walker, African American entrepreneur and the nation’s first black woman bank president, the school was designed by the firm of Carneal, Johnston and Wright in 1937-38. Funding assistance was made possible by President Roosevelt’s New Deal-era Federal Administration of Public Works. In service from 1938 to 1979, this was one of two African American high schools in then segregated Richmond. Located in Richmond’s Jackson Ward historic district, the Art Deco-style school has an unusual double-Y footprint (utilized to provide natural lighting) that gives the building its unique and distinguishing character.