Peabody High School (1870-1970)

Peabody High School, originally the Colored High School, was established in 1870 in the old First Baptist Church located on Harrison Street. The second school was built on Fillmore Street. The current site of the school is on Wesley Street. Peabody is one of the earliest publicly funded high schools for African Americans in Virginia. The city of Petersburg had begun to develop a public school system as early as 1868 and provided the funding needed to build city schools and pay teacher salaries. Alfred Pryor became the school's first African American principal in 1882.