Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C.

The first high schools in the United States emerged during the early 19th century. These schools (exclusively for boys) were largely private and offered a curriculum that was traditional in scope. The Charles E. Stuart et al. v. School District No. 1 of the Village of Kalamazoo, Michigan (1874) case began the transformation of high schools as a privilege for the rich to a public obligation for all, rich and poor. The Michigan case made it possible to use public dollars to fund public secondary schools for, unfortunately in most cases, just White children.

Prior to the Civil War the education of Black children was not a significant public policy issue. Following the Civil War, a wide variety of social reformers began to challenge, explicitly and implicitly, the anachronistic system that tolerated the miseducation (or, in fact, the absence of appropriate education) for a large and significant segment of the American population. The explicit challenges came from conservative voices such as Booker T. Washington, who argued for “vocational training”; more radical approaches were demanded by reformers such as W. E. B. Du Bois who wanted, through America's educational system, much more than simplistic manual training, which was what occurred within Washington's Tuskegee program.

In the midst of the acrimonious debate about how and even whether to educate young Black people in America, one high school evolved that demonstrated clearly the tremendous potential of providing quality educational experiences for Black children and, concomitantly, the tremendous loss of intellectual capital to the country when such educational opportunities are not provided.

Dunbar High School (Washington, D.C.) was one of four public academic high schools in the nation's capital in the late 1800s, and it was the only one that educated Black teenagers. The matriculants at Dunbar were exceptional students in many regards. Their standardized test scores (in 1899) exceeded those of their peers at the White high schools, and the success of their graduates seemed unparalleled.

Originally called the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth (and founded by Mary Jane Patterson, the first African American to obtain a college diploma), the school changed its name to the “M Street School.” It served a wide socioeconomic range of children, from laborers to doctors. In about 1916 the school was renamed Dunbar High School. The school prided itself on strong student academic achievement, excellent student attendance, and low levels of student tardiness. The school's reputation for excellence established it as “the place” to educate young people in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The school was exclusively Black, and when integration became a matter of public policy (through the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision), many Dunbar graduates and advocates protested on the grounds that White students would “bring down” or compromise the academic performance of the Black students attending the school.

A wide range of successful African Americans have graduated from Dunbar: Charles R. Drew, who developed a medical process for using blood plasma; Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., who was appointed the first Black army general; and the successful and iconic musician Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington. Throughout the school's history, its graduates have attended some of the most prestigious post-secondary schools in the country including Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth.

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