About Our School

Charles H. Parker Academic Center is a nationally certified magnet school  located near the intersection of West Blvd. and Clanton Rd. We are approximately 10 minutes from Uptown Charlotte. Access to Interstate 77 makes Parker easily reachable within 2-3 minutes. We are ideally located on the West Boulevard Corridor near to Dilworth and Wilmore.
 
The current school resides on top of a small former "gold mine" from the eighteenth century. Two large round stones used to pulverize rock to extract gold ore are located in front of our main entrance. The original Barringer Academic Center, built in the 1950's, actually had one of the stones serve as the base for their school flag pole.

In 2021, our school community decided to change our school name due to the racist history associated with Barringer.  After several months of learning about the amazing legacy and history of the West Blvd. Corridor, the students and community voted to rename our school, Charles H. Parker Academic Center.  

Charles H. Parker Charles H. Parker (1844-1939), born in slavery, became a visionary leader of the African American community along West Boulevard. He modeled the commitment to community self-help that animates the West Boulevard Neighborhood Coalition today. Parker helped start Moore's Sanctuary A.M.E Zion Church (African Methodist Episcopal Zion) and led the fraternal group that built Plato Price School, the anchor of education for Black children in the area for fifty years and alma mater to Philip O Berry and Mel Watt. He also was a founder of the Sunday school that became Amay James Presbyterian Church. Over the years he helped many black families acquire land and build homes in the Remount Road area. In 1970 his children teamed with Charlotte's leading civil rights leaders to build affordable housing on his 19th century homestead. Parker Heights Apartments still provides below-market rents to West Boulevard residents today.