Changemaker. Trailblazer. Strong. Resilient. Those are just a few of the many words that come to mind when I think of Lucy Addison, an education pioneer who fought to ensure that generations of African Americans had the opportunity to receive a proper education and equal access to learning resources.
Addison was born into slavery on Dec. 8, 1861, in Upperville, Fauquier County. Following emancipation, she went on to graduate in 1882 with a teacher’s diploma from the Institute for Colored Youth, a private school in Philadelphia with an accomplished Black faculty.
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After teaching briefly in Loudoun County, she moved to Roanoke in 1887, where she would serve as an interim principal at the city’s First Ward Colored School, which had 217 enrolled students and only two teachers. However, in 1888, the school hired a male principal, and Addison was demoted to assistant principal and teacher.
Thirty years later, in 1918, she became a principal again—this time at the new Harrison School. The school initially only offered courses through the 8th grade given that at the time, Black students weren’t allowed to earn high school diplomas.
But a stout advocate for change, Addison remained tenacious in the face of any challenge thrown her way. Addison was able to help Harrison School become the first school in Roanoke to offer public academic secondary instruction to all children regardless of race by creating a full curriculum and gradually introducing new coursework.
She retired at the end of the 1926-27 school year and moved to Washington, D.C., but she returned soon after to assist her successor.
In 1928, a new high school for African Americans was named in her honor, Lucy Addison High School, serving as Roanoke’s first public building to be named after one of its residents.
