Walter M. Williams High School - Predecessor Schools

Predecessor Schools

The original Burlington High School was located on Broad Street, and served students until 1951. It is from this school that the names of the yearbook and student newspaper are carried on.

Jordan Sellars High School, a historically black institution, closed its doors in 1970, at which time all of its students were integrated into the student body at Williams.

In 1971, the Burlington City Schools were placed under a court order to integrate, leading to ongoing federal court supervision of the school system's operations (as well as those of the subsequent Alamance Burlington School System).

The 1971 order sought to eliminate racial segregation at was Jordan Sellars, which the federal court determined was being operated as a racially identifiable school in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pursuant to the order, the former Burlington City District attempted to end segregation at what was now Sellars-Gunn by converting it into a junior high school for all Burlington ninth grade students, regardless of race. Sellars-Gunn remained a ninth-grade school from 1971 until 1982, when it was closed and its students were moved to the two high schools - Cummings High and Williams High (Caron Myers press release, July 20, 2009).

In 1995, Sellars-Gunn re-opened as an alternative education center, presently houses several of the school system's alternative education programs, including a Career-Technical Education program and a voluntary program for students suspended for more than 10 days from other Alamance-Burlington schools (Caron Myers press release, July 20, 2009).