Richmond Colored Normal School

African Americans pose in front of the Richmond Colored Normal School at Twelfth and Leigh streets, a building constructed with the financial support of the Freedmen's Bureau. The facility operated both as a normal school to train teachers and as a regular high school. Among the graduates of the school were J. Andrew Bowler, who became a prominent African American educator, and Maggie Lena Walker, a successful black entrepreneur and civic leader.