6134 Virginia Avenue

In in 1870, the Saint Louis Board of Education authorized the school administration to rent one room in Carondelet for African American students. But rented quarters proved hard to find, so in 1873 Colored School #6 was built at 5th and Market Streets, (now Virginia Ave. and Bowen St.)

In the 1890s, it was renamed for Martin R Delaney, a black physician and publisher who was the grandson of a slave brought from West Africa. He was active in the Underground Railroad. Delaney studied medicine at Harvard College and became a Union officer in the Civil War.

A new brick school was built in 1911, however, most students soon moved from the area and attended other schools in central or north Saint Louis. The Delaney school was renamed the Virginia Avenue School in 1935 and opened to white students, while the remaining black children in the neighborhood attended the Delaney Portable Center at Minnesota Ave. and Bowen St. near the Quinn Chapel.

The Virginia Avenue School was rededicated in 1953 and renamed the Maddox School. The building still stands, but it no longer serves as a public school. The cornerstone is legible and reads "Delaney School".