The school was named in honor of Henry Highland Garnet (1815-1882), a famous African American abolitionist and orator, who was born a slave in Kent County, Maryland. Early in his life Garnet and his family escaped to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

Thurgood Marshall attended the school from 1914-1920 for his first six years of segregated public school education. Marshall, the first African American Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, was born in Baltimore in 1908, grew up in this community and formed his enduring moral and legal viewpoints.

Note the design similarities to St. Mary's Hall in Annapolis and Whiteford Hall in Baltimore.