Manassas High School


Manassas High School is a public high school in Memphis, Tennessee. As of 2022, the school had about 420 students of which 96 percent of whom were black. It was established in 1900 as a segregated Black school. In the 1920s, it was one of two high schools in Memphis for African American students. The high school has produced several prominent jazz musicians.

History

Manassas was initially constructed in 1899 or 1900 and expanded using Rosenwald School funding in the 1920s. Cora Taylor was its principal.
In 1940, it was listed as a "Negro" vocational school that taught service occupations. In 1954, it was listed as instructing auto mechanics. In 1946 the Tennessee Negro Athletic Association met in Nashville with the school's J. A. Hayes leading it. Boxer Joe Louis attended the school's 1948 football game against Booker T. Washington High School.
In 1952, a study of the intelligence of the school's students was published by Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State University. In 1953, a report on the reasons for drop-outs given by students, teachers and parents from the school was published. In 1971, a study of female students attitude towards physical education at the school was published. Louis B. Hobson was principal in 1972 when plans to make the campus a middle school in the wake of desegregation were proposed.
Robert Samuel White Sr. was the school's principal for 14 years during the 1980s and 1990s.
The 2011 documentary film Undefeated is about the school's football team and its former coach, Bill Courtney. Its football team has made 12 championship appearances and won twice.

Notable alumni

  • Houston Antwine, football player
  • Clara Brawner, doctor
  • Dee Dee Bridgewater, musician
  • George Clarke, saxophonist
  • George Coleman, musician
  • Barbara Cooper, politician
  • Hank Crawford, musician
  • Isaac Hayes, musician and actor, did not graduate
  • Booker Little, musician
  • Jimmie Lunceford, musician
  • Charles Lloyd, jazz multi-instrumentalist
  • Harold Mabern, musician
  • Phineas Newborn Jr., jazz pianist
  • Will Redmond, football player
  • Frank Strozier, jazz saxophonist
  • Elma Stuckey, politician
  • Burl Toler, football player
  • Ernest Withers, photojournalist
  • Earl Wright, signer and songwriter