Fourth Ward
Harding High School 1957 site (Dorothy Counts' walk)
The Irwin Avenue school where fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts walked through a jeering crowd in September 1957 is gone; the site now holds Irwin Academic Center, while Harding's name lives on at a west Charlotte campus whose library bears hers.
- Historical
Lost Charlotte — the building is gone
Where it stood
- It stood at
- 392 N Irwin Ave, Charlotte, NC 28202, 28202
- From your base
- Sorts every list here by walk time.
The take
Harry P. Harding High School opened on Irwin Avenue in 1935 as a whites-only school, and on September 4, 1957 Dorothy Counts became one of the first Black students admitted — enduring four days of rocks, spit, and slurs from a crowd of hundreds before her parents withdrew her for her safety. After 1961 the school board moved Harding to a new suburban campus and converted the Irwin Avenue building to a junior high, a maneuver civil-rights leader Reginald Hawkins called out as segregation by another name. The old building later served as an elementary school and Head Start center before demolition; Harding University High School now sits at 2001 Alleghany Street, where the library was named for Counts-Scoggins in 2010.
Heritage context
Harding High School
Active today
Harding High School — school, appearing in the Charlotte record across 33 documented year(s).
Sources
- Facts — theclio.com, verified August 2026
- deepCut — the guide’s own research notes — no published source, August 2026 — not independently verified
Similar nearby
The neighborhood
The 14 things this place connects to in the guide's map of the town — one step out, and nothing beyond it.
District
located in
Categories
serves
Eras
associated with
Organizations
associated with
Story threads
associated with
See Harding High School 1957 site (Dorothy Counts' walk) on the wiki, with every connection listedArriving in Fourth Ward? The first-hour guide