Wendell Phillips High School was named for the great abolitionist who openly criticized Abraham Lincoln for delaying the emancipation of slaves. Wendell Phillips was born in 1811, and spent fifty years campaigning against the poor treatment of Native Americans, supporting equal pay and wages for women, and fighting for better working conditions for all workers. Wendell Phillips is considered a great humanitarian, educator, abolitionist, and orator.
Wendell Phillips Academy High School is the oldest African American high school in the city of Chicago, although it opened as a predominantly white school on September 4, 1904. Phillips had replaced the old South Division High School, establish