This two-story building is the latest on a campus established in 1925 as the private Queensburg Academy for Colored Students under the guidance of J. E. Johnson of the Prentiss Institute (PW8). In 1928, the campus became the public Oak Park Vocational High School with four frame Rosenwald-funded buildings. By the early 1950s, the school boasted one of the few public swimming pools for African Americans in the state, built through the efforts of the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. A 1957 fire destroyed all the early buildings except the principal’s house at the rear of campus (now used by the National Oak Park High School Alumni Association). The new two-story school, built using state Equalization funds, has an auditorium near the building’s center flanked by wings containing 27 classrooms, a gymnasium, cafeteria, and two libraries. The modernist design’s geometric forms and lines unify this large building. This school anchors the historically middle-class black neighborhood of Queensburg.