Education – Page 2 – Truxton Is In Shaw

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 8 Coming of Age

This year for Black History Month we’ll review chapter by chapter Alison Stewart’s First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s First Black Public High School. This is more Truxton Circle related then this blog’s previous annual looks at Shaw resident and founder of Negro History Week (later Black history month) Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s Mis-Education of the Negro. As Dunbar High School is located in Truxton Circle currently taking up all of Square 554.

This chapter focuses on the Class of 1946 and their stories. From these individuals’ stories we can see how much Dunbar meant to them and what a unique institution it was. We can gather this group was still alive to extract this history from when the author was gathering material.

The story of Vashti Atkins, who was the Editor in Chief of the Dunbar yearbook, was less than romantic. In her sophomore year she got TB and at that time had to go to a special hospital where she stayed for a little over 3 years. But while in the hospital she was roomed with another Dunbar student, Vivian Stark and they formed a life long friendship. When she returned to Dunbar, she was a legal adult.

The next story was that of Joe Stewart was was from New York City. Dunbar must have been something special as it seemed to attract students beyond the District of Columbia’s borders. His parents were concerned about his academic future. His father graduated from M Street, so his parents decided to send him to live with grandparents in DC to attend Dunbar. Stewart recalled an instance when he and a fellow student Leon Ransom were collecting signatures to protest Safeway’s lack of Black cashiers and the police were called. Leon “Andy” Ransom was the son of NAACP lawyer Leon A. Ransom, and upon recognition of the name the police left the boys alone. The chapter also tells Carol Graham’s story and we learn later that Carol and Joe Stewart married and their lives after Dunbar.

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 7 Chromatics

Oh this will be quick. There was a rumor about Dunbar that darker skinned students were not allowed there. It was wrong. Students of various shades and economic backgrounds attended.

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 6 Old School

The sixth chapter gets into the culture of Dunbar High and the teachers’ and administrators’ efforts to form future Black leaders. Not only did they have high academic standards, they also enforced high standards regarding appearance, hygiene and other mannerisms. It had elements of a finishing school when looking at the rules regarding how students were to conduct themselves.

Not everyone likes high standards and later we’ll see it manifest itself in hatred towards Dunbar by those within the DC Black community. But immediately, Dunbar started to lose students and the standards was one of the reasons cited. There are three reasons mentioned by the author: failing out; transfer to the technical high schools such as Armstrong; needing to work. The Great Migration, where US African Americans began moving out of the South to other parts of the country was just starting. Students from previously poorly run Southern country schools were probably ill prepared for the rigors at Dunbar.

Right or wrong, the faculty felt the way to preserve Dunbar was ti keep the academic bar astronomically high. The school was not a democracy but a meritocracy or a dictatorship, with academic expectation as the undeniable, unchallenged boss.

Being a Dunbar student was a way of life. The strong program was a given and was the reason why students went to Dunbar. And would excel, period. The school adopted a crest and a Latin motto, Adveris Major, Par Secundis (Greater Adversity, Equal in Prosperity).

In the handbook students were instructed in how to behave in public and on and off campus. Young ladies were cautioned by the assistant principal Miss Julia Evangeline Brooks to not powder their faces in school other than the dressing or locker rooms. She also dictated the kinds of fabrics girls should have, favoring gingham and washable fabrics over silks and chiffon.

The author also notes Booker T. Washington’s, “The Gospel of the Toothbrush.” Teaching and enforcing good hygiene was another Dunbar value. The author wrote, “Cleanliness was the American way or the upper and middle classes, and striving Negroes knew appearing immaculate was the key to their acceptance and future prosperity.” The rules and enforcement regarding hygiene and cleanliness was not equal for the sexes. Boys were encouraged to bathe daily, brush teeth more often and be neat in appearance. It seemed no one was telling them what fabrics they should and shouldn’t wear.

The punishment for failing to adhere to the rules was to go to the assistant principal’s office. Those who continued failure to maintain standards would have to reregister to return to the school.

It may seem harsh, but you can’t argue with results. The first class to go through all 4 years, the Class of 1920 included Wm. Mercer Cook and William Allison Davis. An ambassador and an anthropologist.

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 5 Bricks & Mortarboards

In this chapter we move from the M Street School because it was overcrowded and finally get the original Dunbar High School building in Truxton Circle. For those of you unfamiliar with the history of the school, the current Dunbar High building is version 3.0. The second version was a tall prison like building that was ugly as sin and needed to be torn down.

M Street, a Black DC high school, did not have the facilities that the White high schools had, such as a cafeteria or a gym. Of course there was a lot of drama and politicking to get the new Black high school built. There was an idea to build it on the Howard campus.

There is a section in the chapter about Paul Laurence Dunbar, for whom Dunbar High School is named. He was a Dayton, OH resident and friend of the Wright Brothers. He was known in Dayton for being an elevator poet, hawking his published poems to his riders. It appears he was a victim of audience capture, where the larger White audience liked his Black sounding poems, pigeonholing him as a Black poet for Black poems, as opposed to just being an American poet. He died before the school was built in 1906 at the age of 33.

Finally, on 1st Street NW, between O and N Streets NW, on October 2, 1916 Dunbar High opened to serve 1,117 students. It was a vast improvement over the M Street building. It had a cafeteria, and a gym, and a library, chemistry labs, and a rifle range. Probably the only time guns at school was a good thing, supervised by responsible adults.

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 4 It’s the Principal

Like some of the previous it is about the things before Dunbar High School on Square 554 in Truxton Circle. Instead a lot of this chapter is about some political drama regarding the principal of the M Street School, Anna Julia Cooper, on the other side of New York Ave NW.

This chapter provides a lot of valuable background information. It recalls the life of Anna J. Cooper and the Terrells, who were also at M Street. However, nothing about the school’s move to Truxton. So I’m skipping this one as well.

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 3 The Law Giveth And The Law Taketh Away

Like the last chapter we’re still in the 19th century and not in Truxton Circle.

This chapter covers African American education in Washington, DC in the late 1800s. The president of the Board of Trustees of Colored Schools of Washington and Georgetown in Washington, D.C. was William Syphax. He along with others managed to grow the number of schools for Black students in the District of Columbia from one to 75 by 1872. The board had the support of Senator Charles Sumner, for whom the Charles Sumner School and Museum is named.

Syphax, other Black elites, and other supporters, established in 1870 the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church. As the school grew it moved around a bit before settling at 128 M Street NW to become the M Street High School, where the Perry School sits, sort of across the street from Truxton Circle. It operated as a college prep high school from 1982 to about 1916 when it moved into Truxton Circle.

There’s a fair amount of politicking mentioned in this chapter. It doesn’t relate to Truxton Circle, so I’m skipping that part.

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 2 Teaching to Teach

Okay I’ll make this quick. This starts in the mid 19th century and is about Myrtilla Miner, founder of the Normal School for Colored Girls, then after her death, called the Institution for the Education of Colored Youth, then the Miner Normal School, then the Miner Teacher College.

Since this has nothing to do with Truxton Circle, I’m skipping this chapter.

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 1 It Is What It Is

The Introduction hinted at the Dunbar High School (DHS) band, chapter one goes into more detail.

It starts in 2004 when music educator Rodney Chambers discovered DHS didn’t have a band director and managed to get a paid job at the school. From there he discovered all sorts of problems that most inner city Black schools experienced. DHS’ grand past had little relationship to its present. Despite that, he managed to grow and improve the band program.

The path to the 2009 Obama inauguration was long. DHS was one of over a thousand applications. Chambers did not advertise that he’d applied for the chance for his band to march. On the day of the parade there were problems. Some kids went missing.

At this point I will take a break from the book to remember the day before. The band was practicing all over the neighborhood. It was a real treat to see the band marching down my street. I took pictures.

Okay, back to the book.

After the inaugural parade there were comments on a Youtube video as well as other negative feedback regarding their performance. The dance team was a little too spicy.

The point of the first chapter was to show where the school was in the late aughts. The next chapter goes back in time to the beginning, where academics were key and excellence was something to be achieved.

Black History Month 2024: First Class- Forward, Introduction, and Prologue

This year for Black History Month we’ll review chapter by chapter Alison Stewart’s First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s First Black Public High School. This is more Truxton Circle related then this blog’s previous annual looks at Shaw resident and founder of Negro History Week (later Black history month) Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s Mis-Education of the Negro. As Dunbar High School is located in Truxton Circle currently taking up all of Square 554.

The Forward was written by author and political commentator Melissa Harris-Perry. She sets her part of the story in 2006/2007 during the Mayor Fenty years and mentions education reform. She then gives a wide sweep of the period the book covers which is about 100+ years where it goes from seeking excellence to mired in underachievement.

In the Introduction the author starts in 2003 with a plan to visit the school. When speaking to a local about the school the person gives mild praise to the basketball team. She entered and walked around with no one questioning her presence there. It was a far cry from the place her parents had described. She makes some useful points going forward reading the book about what we (as I too am African American) have called ourselves through time and that the author uses those terms. Another thing she wants readers to keep in mind are the school’s name changes. First it is the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, then M Street High School and finally Dunbar.

In the introduction is a great point I will quote:

The story of Dunbar shows what can happen in spite of huge legal, societal, and professional hurdles. It shows what is possible when a group of people focus and band together to make something better. Dunbar shows what happens when a stable middle class exists.

Th Prologue is a snapshot from Obama’s inauguration January 20, 2009. A couple, Dunbar alumni who were teens in the 1940s were watching the inauguration on TV. They were inspired and hopeful with the start of the first Black president but were scandalized by the performance of Dunbar High School marching band.

Taken January 19, 2009. Dunbar Marching Band marches south on the 1600 block of 4th St NW.

School desegregation resegregation problem

This was written in 2019 and sat in my drafts. I’ve edited a little bit.

There was a post sitting in my drafts called “Let’s Resegregate Shaw.” It was sitting there so I can get the sarcasm out of my system. Then a cooler head prevailed and I deleted it altogether.

The DC school lottery results have been out for a while which resulted in a fair number of education opinion and data reports. What bugs me is that it seems the authors don’t acknowledge the peculiarities of the District of Columbia and how whatevertheory they have that may apply to Anywhere, USA doesn’t necessarily work here.

Chocolate City and a Craptastic Education

So after desegregation in District of Columbia schools after the Bolling v Sharpe case in the 50s, there was white flight (followed by black flight but we don’t talk about that..shhhh). The result was a overwhelmingly African American public school system, reflecting the majority minority city DC had become. In the last census, Blacks did not make up the majority, but was still the largest racial group in the city.

When I arrived in the DC area in the mid 1990s, DC schools had a poor reputation. The sign that everything, including the kitchen was being thrown at the problem was when General Julius W. Becton Jr., a man with no previous background in the field of Education, was named School Superintendent in 1996. DC had some of the highest per pupil spending but the worst outcomes. Gen. Becton resigned, quit, headed for the hills, after 16 months on the job. I don’t know when the public schools went downhill, all I know is it was broken when I got here.

Addendum from 2023:

It appeared to me when I wrote this that the schools were resegregating. I couldn’t help but notice that white parents who remained in the District of Columbia flocked to certain charter schools if they didn’t live west of the park (Rock Creek) where white students were the majority.

I did a review of Shaw schools in 2021 and with the exception of KIPP the academics of many of the public and charter schools were unimpressive. And, with the exception of charter school Munde Verde, they were pretty segregated, being majority Black with so few white students their PARCC scores hardly registered.

Children/ students are not the property or products of the state. Parents are making decisions and making the effort to put their children in this or that school. So there is a limit of what the DC government can do to attempt to integrate/desegregate DC schools. We may disagree with parents’ decisions to have their children sent halfway across the city to some random charter instead of their neighborhood public school. Or parents who purposefully moved into the Deal Middle School boundary area with crowding out other students from other areas and fighting any change in that boundary.