Reverend Elias and Beatrice Burnett Collection

Richard G. Lockett was an African-American educator who helped found the public library in Houston for African Americans. Richard Lockett was born in Houston in 1882. He graduated from Atlanta University in 1905, and returned to Houston where he taught in and later coached at the Colored High School for Blacks. Because Blacks were not allowed to use Houston’s public libraries, he along with Walter L. D. Johnson, Sr. and Leonard Spivey (all of whom would later become Omega men) championed and succeeded in the establishment of Houston’s Colored Carnegie Library which opened in 1913. In 1926, he was also involved in the establishment of and a charter member of the Houston Affiliate of the Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Texas, Free and Accepted Masons. Brother Lockett continued teaching and R.G. Lockett Junior High School, was named after him in 1959.

Lockett Junior High School was an African-American school located at 303 West Dallas, Houston, TX. The school was named after Richard G. Lockett who was an African-American educator born in Houston, TX, in the year of 1882. Along with fellow teacher and administrator Ernest Ollington Smith, Lockett was instrumental in founding a public library in Houston for African-Americans. Lockett died in 1945. The school named after him opened in 1959 in the old Booker T. Washington High School building at 303 West Dallas, Houston, TX and closed nine years later in June, 1968.