Mission

When Victoria Walker was only four years old, the teacher who boarded with her grandmother began to instruct her. At the time, the school was in the black community church across Cedar Bayou. When she was fourteen, the people of Mount Olive Baptist Church where Victoria was a member, together with her grandmother, saved enough money to send her to Prairie View Normal and Industrial College so that she could further her education. She received a teaching certificate after two years. Shortly after that, she took charge of the Cedar Bayou Colored Elementary. It was a one room school house that lacked water and depended on a wood stove for heat in the winter. Mrs. Walker devoted her life to making it the best school possible in the community. Mrs. Walker was determined that her students would receive a well-rounded education. She organized a basketball team, a choir, and a small band. She provided classes for older students and even adults in the community during the evenings. An entire generation of African-Americans in Baytown owe their education to Mrs. Walker. In 1964, after thirty-one years of work in her community elementary school, Mrs. Walker was transferred to George Washington Carver in Baytown. Her little school closed. She became the first black teacher at Stephen F. Austin Elementary in 1966. In an interview in 1984, thirteen years after she retired, Victoria Walker said that her goal in life was to teach that all people could learn from each other to make this world a better place. (Taken from the GCCISD Third Grade History Unit)