The Rosenwald Schools was a project which built more than 5,000 schools, shops, and teacher homes for primarily African-American education. The project was a partnership between Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington. The Rosenwald Fund, part of the project, contributed seed money for many schools and other causes including the foundation of the original Dr. William Henry Spencer High School in Columbus, Georgia.

The first Spencer High School was built on 10th Avenue at 8th Street in Columbus, Georgia on November 29, 1930 by the Columbus Public Schools as the first African American high school in Columbus. The school was named in honor of Dr. William Henry Spencer, Supervisor of the Colored Schools in Muscogee County. The school moved to Shepherd Drive in 1953 and was designated at the Columbus city high school that military-dependent students from neighboring Fort Benning would attend following the 1971 desegregation order. The school was voted to close in 1978 and students were moved to a new high school located on Victory Drive on Fort Benning reservation with the name remaining. A third location opened August 2018 on Fort Benning Road and is designed to accommodate around 1,100 students.