Between 1926 and 1951, there were three high schools serving Black students in Charlottesville and Albemarle County: Albemarle Training School, Esmont High School, and Jefferson High School. These schools were poorly funded and overcrowded with inadequate facilities, few teachers, and limited resources. In 1947, discussions began between the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County about consolidating the area's three Black high schools began into a new high school. In doing so, city and county officials hoped to provide students with better facilities and more resources. Jackson. P. Burley High School opened in September 1951. It was owned and operated jointly by the Charlottesville School Board and Albemarle County School Board to provide high school education to African American students from both the city and county. Some Black students from Greene and Nelson counties also attended the school.

Burley High School students played an important role in the fight over school integration in Charlottesville. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision of Brown v Board of Education ruled that segregated public education was unconstitutional. Soon after, Venable Elementary School and Lane High School, both all-white public schools in Charlottesville, became a national site for the massive resistance movement. In 1958, the NAACP filed a lawsuit on behalf of twelve Black students from the Jefferson Elementary School and the Jackson P. Burley High School who sought transfer to the all-white Venable Elementary School and Lane High School. Both white schools were subsequently shuttered during massive resistance in September 1958, per the order of Governor James Lindsey Almond, Jr. But a federal court order led the schools to reopen in February 1959, and Black students were admitted to Venable Elementary and Lane High School for the first time in September 1959.

Following desegregation in 1967, the school graduated its final class of seniors. The school reopened as Jackson P. Burley Middle School in 1974 under the sole ownership of Albemarle County.

Between 1951 and 1967, Jackson P. Burley High School, in collaboration with the UVA Hospital, offered a licensed practical nursing program. The more than 150 graduates of the LPN program went on to desegregate the UVA hospital and had a major impact on their patients and communities.

On September 17, 2020, the Virginia State Department of Historic Resources named Jackson P. Burley High School as a Virginia historic landmark, and on November 24, 2020, the school was approved by the National Park Service to be listed on the National Register for Historic Places.

Lucille Stout Smith, Unforgettable: Jackson P. Burley High School, 1951-1967.

Virginia Department of Historic Resources, visit:
https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/104-5276-0064/

"UVA Shines Light of Recognition on African American Nurses it Trained Decades Ago," read:
https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-shines-light-recognition-african-american-nurses-it-trained-decades-ago

"UVA and the History of Race: The Era of Massive Resistances," read:
https://news.virginia.edu/content/uva-and-history-race-era-massive-resistance?utm_source=DailyReport&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news