Article Text
A wall concealed behind brick for decades now anchors the renovated lobby of Louise Archer Elementary School, reconnecting the Vienna campus with its beginnings as a three-room school for Black children during segregation.
Former students Alees Coates-Richardson, 92, and Gloria Carter, 91, returned to see the restored section of the original 1939 schoolhouse. Both attended the institution, then called the Vienna Colored School, during the 1940s and studied under Louise Reeves Archer.
“Oh, oh wow!” Coates-Richardson exclaimed as she approached the wall.
Workers uncovered the structure during a renovation and expansion that added classrooms, administrative offices and a new library. Architects revised their plans to preserve the discovery and make it the centerpiece of the updated lobby.
“It’s really a great opportunity to come back where we first started,” Carter said.
Life in a Three-Room Schoolhouse
The Vienna Colored School served African American children from the greater Vienna area. Its original building contained only three classrooms, with no cafeteria, gym or indoor toilets.
Coates-Richardson recalled that students exercised in the yard and went outside to use the restroom. Carter remembered playing dodgeball outdoors.
The schoolhouse opened in 1939 after Archer and other community advocates pushed county education officials to fund it. Archer served as principal and as one of three teachers, instructing students in fifth through seventh grades.
Carter and Coates-Richardson remembered her as a deeply committed educator who treated her pupils like family.
“She was a sweet, sweet lady. She was like a mother,” Coates-Richardson said.
Carter said Archer had no children of her own and regarded her students as her children. While commuting from Washington, D.C., Archer often collected as many pupils as she could in her Buick. Carter recalled that two or three boys sometimes rode in the trunk.
Archer’s Legacy Endures
During the baby boom after World War II, officials approved two more classrooms, indoor plumbing and a central heating plant for the school.
Archer never saw those improvements. She died in 1948 while visiting family in North Carolina. The community then campaigned successfully to have the school renamed for its longtime principal.
The school was integrated in 1965 following years of legal battles over desegregation in Virginia. Its modern campus includes a cafeteria, gymnasium, indoor restrooms and drinking fountains.
The renovated lobby also keeps the institution’s earlier history in view. Beside the restored wall, a mural portrays Archer with the schoolhouse she led and the Buick she used to transport students. Display cases near the main office contain more memorabilia, including a 1946 class photograph showing Archer, Carter and Coates-Richardson.
“We have come a long way,” the former classmates agreed.
“Thank the Good Lord that He’s blessed us to stay here to see it,” Carter said.
“Just to see this is amazing,” Coates-Richardson said. “It’s a pleasure to be here to make history again.”
Carter died on July 23, 2025, at age 91. Coates-Richardson died on Nov. 9, 2025, at age 92, leaving memories that now form part of the history preserved inside the school.