African American residents of Middlesex County established the Langston Training School (later the Middlesex Training School) in 1917 to serve elementary and high school students. The Rosenwald Fund supported construction of a new building ca. 1921. John Henry St. Clare Walker, principal for two decades, expanded the high school curriculum from two to four years despite inadequate funding. The high school moved here in 1939. Later renamed in Walker’s honor, it was among the first rural high schools for black students to be accredited by the Virginia Department of Education. Students garnered awards for academics, athletics, and the arts. The county’s school system was desegregated in 1969.