Stephens-Lee High School / Community Center

The school opened in 1923. It closed in 1965, the year desegregation reached Asheville City Schools.

Edward S. Stephens had been a principal in the city's Black schools and the first general secretary of the Young Men's Institute. By 1893, he had been fired from both positions. Stephens left Asheville. The high school that bore his name opened three decades later.

In 1975, the main building was demolished overnight by urban renewal with no public notice. Alumni saved the gym wing. It operates now as Stephens-Lee Community Center, at 30 George Washington Carver Avenue. Inside: Stephens-Lee Heritage Hall museum. Outside: an HMDB marker.

What you visit is what was kept, not what was built. The rest is gone.