George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center (Phoenix Union Colored High School)

Like many places in the American Southwest, Arizona maintained separate schools for African Americans and separated, barred, or simply discriminated against Mexican American children. African American children in many parts of the state attended classes alongside white children but faced discrimination. In Phoenix, neighborhoods with a significant number of Black families maintained separate schools for white and Black children. Union Colored High School opened in 1926 as a formally segregated school, changing its name to George Washington Carver High School in 1943. Ten years later, Black parents secured a decision ending the city's official segregation policies. As a result, Phoenix was one of only a small number of cities that practiced segregation but ended the practice prior to the 1954 US Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board, which struck down the doctrine of separate but equal. The building is currently used as the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.