The Hickory Hill School sits in the city of Richmond’s Southside area, in what once was Chesterfield County. The school was built in 1938 for African American students on the same property as two earlier schools and a shop building; the 1915 frame school and the 1925 Rosenwald School and shop building are no longer extant. Hickory Hill School served generations of Black students as the county’s only training school during 20th-century segregation in Virginia’s public school system. As the county’s first brick school for African Americans, its construction and subsequent expansion in 1958 embodied the Black community’s efforts to provide equal educational opportunities and facilities for their children during Jim Crow.  The school is also significant for its association with local Civil Rights advocate and leader in education, James Preston Spencer.  The Hickory Hill School closed in 1969, and the building was repurposed to serve as a community center.