The Twentieth Street School (originally named Tenth District Primary School No. 2) at 2442 N. 20th Street in Milwaukee was completed in 1902 and designed in the High Victorian Italianate style by the Wisconsin architecture firm Van Ryn & DeGelleke. The Twentieth Street School is significant in the area of Social History for its associations with the Civil Rights Movement in Milwaukee and Wisconsin. In 1964, the school was one of a small group of inner-core public schools strategically selected by civil rights advocates for the first public demonstrations protesting segregation within Milwaukee’s public school system. The school was the focus of continued protests through May 1965, which culminated in the filing of a landmark desegregation lawsuit against the school board in June 1965.

The building is three-stories over a raised basement, has a rectangular footprint, painted brick walls, and a hipped roof topped with an original cupola. The historic interior layout of the 1902 building is preserved, and historic finishes such as wood flooring, plaster walls, and built-in wood cabinetry are retained throughout. Two two-story brick additions built in 1960 and 1966 extend to the south of the 1902 school, and were designed in the Modern Movement style. The two additions contain classrooms organized around a center corridor. A one-to-two-story 1971 addition, also designed in the Modern Movement style, is located to the rear (east) of the 1902 school, and houses a cafeteria and gymnasium. All three additions retain their historic interior layout and original finishes.

The Twentieth Street School is a tangible reminder of this critical period in the evolution of the Civil Rights Movement in Milwaukee, a short but intense period of direct action by prominent local civil rights groups and integration activists that helped to bring the issue of de facto segregation in the city to the attention of its citizens and to the nation.