Urban Crisis”

Concrete Solutions: Architecture of Public High Schools During the “Urban Crisis”

By Amber N. Wiley

Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, May 2003, Yale University Master of Architectural History, May 2005, University of Virginia

A Dissertation Submitted To

The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

May 15, 2011

Dissertation directed by

Richard Longstreth Professor of American Studies The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Amber N. Wiley has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of March 11, 2011. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation.

Concrete Solutions: Architecture of Public High Schools During the “Urban Crisis” Amber N. Wiley

Dissertation Research Committee:

Richard Longstreth, Professor of American Studies, Dissertation Director

Suleiman Osman, Assistant Professor of American Studies, Committee Member

James A. Miller, Professor of English and American Studies, Committee Member

iii

Acknowledgements

I am truly grateful to my engaged, astute, and supporting committee for continuously pushing me to do my best research and work for this project. Richard

Longstreth as committee chair was enthusiastic, available, and rigorous, the absolute model of a generous and benevolent advisor. Suleiman Osman and James Miller

provided immeasurable support and valued input. All committee members pressed me to

ask the hard questions and maintain focus on the task at hand. Their collective wisdom is

beyond comparison.

The knowledge and assistance of archivists at the various research institutions

were essential to this project, including Nancye Suggs and Kimberly Springle at the

Sumner School Museum and Archives, William Whitaker at the Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania, William Branch at the District of Columbia Archives,

Susan Raposa at the Commission of Fine Arts, Adele McLeor at the Atlanta Public

Schools Archives, Marjorie Leon at the Atlanta Public School Board, Nancy Hadley at

the American Institute of Architects Archives, as well as the respective staff at the

Washingtoniana Division of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Public Library, the Kiplinger

Research Library of Historical Society of Washington, D.C., Gelman Library Special

Collections, the Auburn Avenue Research Library, the Atlanta University Center

Archives and Special Collections, the Robert W. Woodruff Library at Emory University,

the Urban Archives at Temple University, the Philadelphia City Archives, the Library of

Congress, and the Art and Architecture Libraries at the University of Maryland.

My research has been propelled by the generous support of the SRI Foundation which seeks to promote and advance our knowledge of the past and the AERA which is

iv committed to improving educational processes through scholarly inquiry. In 2008 I was awarded the SRI Foundation Dissertation Research Scholarship, and in 2010 the AERA’s

Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research.

I have been blessed with a wonderful friendship these years at George

Washington with my cohort Charity Fox, Laurie Lahey, and Joan Fragaszy Troyano.

From our first day of orientation we have been a unit inseparable, providing academic, professional, and most importantly personal support to each other as we met challenges head on together. Thank you ladies for the camaraderie. Thanks also go to Joan and

Charisse Cecil for reading chapter drafts and giving me important feedback on the project.

I am indebted to my cousins Andrea Plater, Lauren Johnson, and Carole Ross for continuously supplying me with shelter, food, and transportation – the essentials! – while conducting research in Atlanta and Philadelphia. This would have been a completely different project if not for their support.

Finally, I would like to thank my father Clarence Wiley, stepmother Cindy, brothers Christopher and Roland, Grandma Wiley, Grandpa Dudley, Aunt Jan, Uncle

Duane, Cousin Bonita, and countless other cousins, aunts and uncles for their continuous words of encouragement and the love they have shown me through this journey. I am nothing without my family. Thanks to my little brother CJ for always being a welcome diversion. And thank you to my mother Denise Wiley for embedding the spirit of perseverance in me. I wish you could have seen this day.

Abstract of the Dissertation

Concrete Solutions: Architecture of Public High Schools During the “Urban Crisis”

This dissertation documents and contextualizes the creation of fortified, yet programmatically innovative, high schools designed between 1960 and 1980 in Atlanta,

Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. The striking nature of the school designs – avant- garde in materiality, scale, programming, and plan – are testaments to the high ideals of education reform for urban cities that were battling the damaging effects of suburbanization, urban unrest, and riots. In addition to examining a building type that has received minimal scholarly attention in discussions of the urban crisis, this dissertation situates architectural expression of the school building within major political, cultural, and educational paradigm shifts that inform how the schools are designed and the ways the built environment is interpreted.

During the late 1950s city officials, school administrators and alumni, and educational consultants were confronted with persistent de facto segregation that was exacerbated by the mass exodus of middle-class families to the suburbs. They juggled various approaches to create an encouraging and enlightened environment for students in the post-World War II era. Schools faced crises in the form of deteriorating building stock, declining public image, and limited financial resources in addition to segregation and a shrinking student body. Many of the urban crisis schools, designed by prominent architecture firms, were intended to aid in the social and cultural renewal of economically depressed areas. While local school boards initially championed the construction of large-scale urban schools as harbingers of integration, this rhetoric gave way to the reality of school siting that reified lines of concentrated residential and educational segregation.

Large-scale urban renewal plans of the 1950s followed by the riots of the 1960s

left cities in shambles. Neighborhoods were physically cut off from resources and jobs.

School construction attempted to alleviate some of the problems that the riots and urban renewal caused. Community involvement in later renewal plans, administered through the Great Society’s War on Poverty Model Cities program, included schools as important design components. This changed the meaning of urban renewal in African American neighborhoods from “Negro removal” to an opportunity for local non-profit and activist groups to restructure their immediate surroundings in a meaningful way.

Ultimately, the design of the schools revealed a sentiment of fear about the urban condition and youth culture as the schools physically turned their backs on the communities they were meant to serve through their inward orientation and lack of contextual response to the street. At that time, however, the schools brought about a new definition of monumental architecture as a result of their Brutalist aesthetic expressed through materiality and massing. The open-plan school, which created interior spaces that lacked walls, conflicted with the sculptural quality of the buildings that attempted to be secure and open simultaneously.

The dissertation concludes by challenging the historic preservation and education communities to reassess value systems established for the preservation of African

American cultural heritage. Studying these schools creates contextualized records of their histories highlighting, a critical juncture in the Civil Rights-Black Power narrative.

This connection melds the milieu of urban upheaval, architectural design, and community politics of empowerment during a period of major paradigm shifts in the historiography of the American city.

vii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ……………………………………...... iv

Abstract of the Dissertation …………………………………………………….……vi

Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………..…...viii

List of Illustrations……………………………………………………………………..ix

Introduction …...... 1

Chapter 1: Education: The Panacea of the Ills of a Divided Society……………...32

Chapter 2: Design: Fortresses of the Mind, Rather Than Penitentiaries of the Spirit………………………….………………………………..………………...75

Chapter 3: New Power Dynamics: Community Politics and Urban Renewal……120

Chapter 4: Worthy of Consideration? Challenges to the Preservation of Recent Past Educational Architecture…………....………………………………154

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..204

Bibliography…………..…………………………………………………………….…209

Appendix: Illustrations…..…………………………………………………………...222

viii

List of Illustrations

Figure 1. Preston Willis Search image of the school park concept.

Figure 2. Ideal community school and its related institutions.

Figure 3. Philadelphia school construction in relation to city demographics.

Figure 4. Metropolitan plan for desegregation.

Figure 5. Tudor School, Islington Green, London, England.

Figure 6. Charles L. Harper High School, Atlanta, Georgia.

Figure 7. Frederick Douglass High School, Atlanta, Georgia.

Figure 8. Architect’s rendering of Douglass High School as “Vine City” High School.

Figure 9. Howard D. Woodson High School, Washington, D.C.

Figure 10. Image capturing the monumental essence of Woodson High School’s design.

Figure 11. Ceremonial gathering at Woodson High School.

Figure 12. Plan for Southwest Junior High School, Albert Lea, Minnesota.

Figure 13. Plan for White Plains Senior High School, White Plains, New York.

Figure 14. Study for a “Deployable School,” Sommerset County, New Jersey.

Figure 15. Plan of Harper High School.

Figure 16. Douglass High School second floor plan.

Figure 17. Douglass High School third floor plan.

Figure 18. University City High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Figure 19. University City High School ground floor plan.

Figure 20. University City High School first floor plan.

Figure 21. University City High School second floor plan.

Figure 22. Interior courtyard of University City High School.

Figure 23. University City High School site plan.

Figure 24. A School for 50 Pupils Aged 5 to 11 Years at Finmere, Oxfordshire.

Figure 25. Q-Spaces designed to replace traditional learning furniture.

Figure 26. William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Figure 27. William Penn High School first floor plan.

Figure 28. William Penn High School interior with semi-private carrels.

Figure 29. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C.

Figure 30. Section view of Dunbar High School.

Figure 31. Dunbar High School third mezzanine west plan.

Figure 32. Dunbar High School fourth floor east plan.

Figure 33. Dunbar High School fourth floor west plan.

Figure 34. Dunbar High School fourth mezzanine east plan.

Figure 35. Original design of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School with proposed terraces.

Figure 36. Interior of Dunbar High School.

Figure 37. Frederick Douglass High School yearbook recalling turmoil of 1968.

Figure 38. Detail of Woodson High School pour-in-place concrete wall.

Figure 39. Woodson High School process of construction laid bare.

Figure 40. Harper High School, low and “imposing” roofline.

Figure 41. Students sitting under-low hanging roof during leisure time.

Figure 42. Boundaries of University City Renewal Area.

Figure 43. The “ghosts” of Vine City.

Figure 44. Buttermilk Bottom, James H. Malone.

Figure 45. Ruins of a store in Washington, D.C. destroyed during the riots.

Figure 46. Washington riot aftermath at the intersection of Seventh and M streets, NW.

Figure 47. M Street School, predecessor to Paul Laurence Dunbar High School.

Figure 48. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C. in 1916.

Figure 49. Caricature of debate between Dunbar alumni and the Board of Education.

Figure 50. Site plan for new 1977 Dunbar High School.

Figure 51. Deteriorated condition of Woodson High School in June 2008.

Figure 52. Woodson High School sign with remaining aluminum letters.

Figure 53. Busted pipe leakage in Woodson High School bathroom.

Figure 54. Abandoned Woodson High School swimming pool.

Figure 55. December 2008 demolition of Woodson High School.

Figure 56. William Penn High School broken window, January 2011.

Figure 57. Rear view of William Penn High School fenced off main academic building.

Figure 58. New Howard D. Woodson High School, expected completion 2013.

Figure 59. Graphic showing Woodson in neighborhood context.

Figure 60. Front elevation of Harper-Archer Middle School in Atlanta May 2008.

Figure 61. Front elevation of Harper-Archer Middle School May 2008.

Figure 62. Frederick Douglass High School in Atlanta after 2004 renovations.

Figure 63. Douglass High School south elevation, May 2008.

Figure 64. Douglass High School auditorium, May 2008.

Figure 65. Douglass High School auditorium on left and gymnasium in background.

Figure 66. Dunbar High School in deteriorated condition, August 2010.

Figure 67. Paint covering graffiti inside Dunbar High School.

Figure 68. Interior ramps of Dunbar High School now cut off from classroom space.

Figure 69. Students showing school pride in front of Woodson High School sign.

Figure 70. Main façade of new Dunbar High School, scheduled for completion 2013.

Figure 71. Site plan for new Dunbar High School design.

Figure 72. Dunbar High School armory concept design.

xii

View of the Library of Congress from Paul Laurence Dunbar High School

Thomas Sayers Ellis

For Doris Craig and Michael Olshausen

A white substitute teacher At an all-Black public high school, He sought me out saying my poems Showed promise, range, a gift, And had I ever heard of T. S. Eliot? No. Then Robert Hayden perhaps?

Hayden, a former colleague, Had recently died, and the obituary He handed me had already begun Its journey home – from the printed page Back to tree, gray becoming Yellow, flower, dirt.

No river, we skipped rocks On the horizon, above Ground Zero, From the roof of the Gibson Plaza Apartments. We'd aim, then shout the names Of the museums, famous monuments, And government buildings

Where our grandparents, parents, Aunts, and uncles worked. Dangerous duds. The bombs we dropped always fell short, Missing their mark. No one, not even Carlton Green who had lived in As many neighborhoods as me,

Knew in which direction To launch when I lifted Hayden's Place of employment – The Library of Congress – From the obituary, now folded In my back pocket, a creased map.

xiii

We went home, asked our mothers, But they didn't know. Richard's came Close: Somewhere near Congress, On Capitol Hill, take the 30 bus, Get off before it reaches Anacostia, Don't cross the bridge into Southeast.

The next day in school I looked it up – The National Library Of the United States in Washington, D.C., Founded in 1800, open to all taxpayers And citizens. Snap! My Aunt Doris Works there, has for years.

Once, on her day off, she Took me shopping and bought The dress shoes of my choice. Loafers. They were dark red, Almost purple, bruised – the color Of blood before oxygen reaches it.

I was beginning to think Like a poet, so in my mind Hayden's dying and my loafers Were connected, but years apart, As was Dunbar to other institutions – Ones I could see, ones I could not.

xiv

Introduction

A further important aspect of spaces of this kind is their increasingly pronounced visible character. They are made with the visible in mind: the visibility of people and things, of spaces and of whatever is contained by them. The predominance of visualization … serves to conceal repetitiveness. People look, and take sight, take seeing, for life itself.

Henri Lefebvre, 1974

This dissertation began with a personal desire to visualize and be in the tangible presence of history. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School (formerly the M Street School) in Washington, D.C., loomed in my mind as an institution of mythic proportions as the first public high school established for African Americans in the nation. It was also important for the central position it held in the African American struggle for equality during the era of segregation. The long list of achievement for which its administrators, teachers, and alumni were known made it hallowed ground. Charles Drew, lauded for his work with blood plasma storage graduated from Dunbar, and Anna Julia Cooper, one of the earliest black women to receive a doctorate roamed the halls and taught lessons of life to young and eager students there. On a sunny summer afternoon in 2006 I decided to make my first trip to Dunbar High School to pay homage to a history I believed was connected to my own. It was that trip that placed me on a road to discovery that has subsequently led to a new understanding of the era known as the urban crisis, and of how black authority and agency during this tumultuous time was reflected in the design of educational institutions and the larger context of the built environment.

My investigation was initiated with the surprise I experienced upon arriving at

Dunbar High and discovering that the present building completing rejected the imagery I had fashioned in my mind of an early twentieth-century red brick schoolhouse, which

was possibly castellated, or maybe of austere classicized motifs crowned with a firm, central, pedimented portico. In the place of my imaginary Dunbar was the real thing.

Indeed it was a singular, powerfully constructed building, now sorely neglected, that sat

anomalous and utterly oblivious to its immediate context, resembling a high-rise fortress,

monumental in the skyline of surroundings that consisted of two- and three-story rowhouses. I estimated by the style and materials that it was a product of the late 1960s or early 1970s, and I could not begin to fathom the intentions behind the erection of this ahistorical, monumentally modernist structure in place of whatever building that had preceded it.

One point was certain; the school building’s design was meant as a visible statement, indeed a proclamation, about the people who created it and those who would use it. Architect Craig Barton in Sites of Memory: Perspectives on Architecture and

Race discussed the nature of superimposed landscapes of the segregated public spheres in which the black public existed within a sphere of limited visibility.1 Many public schools

with an all-black student population such as Dunbar attempted to function as concrete

solutions to a multitude of problems in urban centers of the 1960s and 1970s. Their

architectural statements in brick and concrete were loud and bold, and reclaimed the

visibility of people and things, similar to that which Henri Lefebvre described in The

Production of Space. They functioned to empower the community by creating a new

1 Craig Barton, ed., Sites of Memory: Perspectives on Architecture and Race (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001). 2

architectural vocabulary of monumentality.2 In this case, the people were black students

and their community of advocates, and the thing was the process of learning.

The design of Dunbar was purposeful, sculptural, overpowering, and illegible in

contemporary times. The intent behind the design has been obscured with the passage of

time, as was its meaning and subsequent understanding of its architectural expression and

the cultural milieu in which it was built. Even the protagonists behind its design and

construction were an unknown variable in the equation. Were “they,” the creators of this

school building, a representative sample of an engaged local community? Or conversely

were “they” a system of municipal and federal bureaucrats dictating the destruction and

creation of the landscape in order to perpetuate a feeling of alienation and oppression?

These questions would become clearer in looking at the history of the school building

itself.

The singularity of the building was striking. In its present form, the institutional

memory of the school narrative, from post-Emancipation to the so-called “post-racial” politics of the Obama era, is diminished. It is weakened by the graffiti that adorns the concrete interior walls, the reality of the broken escalators that once transported students from the entry lobby to class, and the faded and peeling poster of 1980s movie star Steve

Guttenberg in the schoolroom cafeteria. The relatively recent loss of memory associated with the history of the school and its building is a reflection of the tensions that arose in the era of Black Power political struggles for autonomy and the conflation of collective memory that embraced a selective African American cultural heritage at the expense of a multiplicity of narratives about the history of education and upliftment.

2 See Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Cambridge: MA: Blackwell, 1991), 75. 3

Though Dunbar’s design was an anomaly in the context of its neighborhood,

further research into the nature of educational design during the urban crisis shows that the building existed within much larger national and even international trends in the fields of education and architectural design. This dissertation documents and contextualizes the creation of fortified, yet programmatically innovative, high schools designed between 1960 and 1980 in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington; the educational reform that informed their design, as well as the structures of power and agency that effected the siting, program, and function of the buildings; and, finally, the difficult task of managing the legacy of the buildings in contemporary times. The conspicuous nature of the school designs – avant-garde in materiality, scale, programming, and plan – are testaments to the local community, city boosters, and city administrators’ high ideals of education reform for urban places that were battling the damaging effects of deindustrialization, suburbanization, urban unrest, and riots. In addition to examining a building type that has received minimal scholarly attention in discussions of the urban crisis, this dissertation situates architectural expression of the school building within major demographic, political, cultural, and educational paradigm shifts that inform how the schools are designed and the ways the built environment is interpreted.

During the late 1950s city officials, school administrators and alumni, and educational consultants were confronted with persistent de facto segregation that was exacerbated by the mass exodus of white middle-class families to the suburbs and black middle-class families from traditionally segregated areas. They juggled various approaches to create an encouraging and enlightened environment for students in the

post-World War II era. In addition to segregation and a shrinking student body, schools faced crises in the form of deteriorating building stock, declining public image, and limited financial resources. Many of the urban crisis schools, designed by prominent

architecture firms, were intended to aid in the social and cultural renewal of economically

depressed areas. While local school boards initially championed the construction of

large-scale urban schools as harbingers of integration, this rhetoric gave way to the reality

of school siting that reinforced lines of concentrated residential and educational

segregation.

Large-scale urban renewal plans of the 1950s followed by the riots of the 1960s

left cities in shambles. Neighborhoods were physically cut off from resources and jobs.

School construction attempted to alleviate some of the problems that the riots and urban

renewal caused. Community involvement in later renewal plans administered through the

Great Society’s War on Poverty Model Cities program, which included schools as

important design components, changed the meaning of urban renewal in African

American neighborhoods from “Negro removal” to an opportunity for local non-profit and activist groups to restructure their immediate surroundings in a meaningful way.

Ultimately, the design of the schools revealed a sentiment of fear about the urban

condition and youth culture as the schools physically turned their backs on the

communities they were meant to serve through their inward orientation and lack of

contextual response to the street. At that time, however, the schools brought about a new

definition of monumental architecture as a result of their Brutalist aesthetic expressed

through materiality and massing. The open-plan school, which created interior spaces

that lacked walls, conflicted with the sculptural quality of the buildings that attempted to be secure and open simultaneously.

These new designs also reveal the major failings of educational architecture of that time. Open space plans were unsuccessful programmatically and aesthetically for numerous reasons, including the inability to facilitate optimal learning environments through design. These schools were plagued with noise carryovers, and the lack of physical structure aided hall roaming and decreased attention span. Additionally, instead of being “open” to the fullest extent, these buildings were in fact highly insular and inward looking. They did not respond well to the context of their built environment, in effect keeping students in a captive space, while not inviting the community in. Many of the high schools built between 1960 and 1980 were aesthetically intimidating yet innovative in plan. The resulting disconnect between design intentions and actual experience of the buildings only added to the effects of urban poverty and decline by creating ahistorical educational buildings that alienated the same students and communities the buildings attempted to attract.

The dissertation concludes by challenging the historic preservation and education communities to reassess value systems established for the preservation of African

American cultural heritage. This study creates contextualized records of school histories that highlight a critical juncture in the Civil Rights-Black Power narrative and inform contemporary approaches to school maintenance and preservation. The history and original intent of design for these buildings should guide the decisions concerning their future.

This dissertation is interdisciplinary in nature and inquiry because it brings

together various academic fields and incorporates varied research methodologies to

understand the interplay between buildings, communities, and narratives of power. The dissertation adds to the field of architectural history by examining an understudied building type – the high school building plant in the postwar urban context. It also ties architectural and urban history together by situating design considerations within the context of the federal and local urban policy. Community activism and process of desegregation will be highlighted in relationship to the design of high schools. Much of what is covered in the field of urban history on the African American community in the post-industrial city focuses on housing, urban poverty, job discrimination, and the Civil

Rights Movement. This dissertation takes a decidedly different approach, by evaluating the cultural symbolism of the high school during that time period.

This research is a comparative analysis across three metropolitan centers, while many of the previous scholarly works on the post-industrial urban city tend to focus on a particular community or city as a case study. This approach adds to the argument that the design of Dunbar High was not a work in isolation nor was it exceptional due to its construction in the nation’s capital. The trends revealed in the research from Atlanta,

Philadelphia, and Washington are applicable and meaningful to other studies of urban high school architecture in the United States.

Finally, the dissertation makes an intervention in the realm of educational history by illustrating how changes brought about by the Civil Rights Movement, such as inclusive curriculum, newly formulated “open” pedagogy, and active desegregation

(instead of symbolic), influenced the design of high school buildings and school parks.

Much of the literature on educational history focuses on policy, curriculum, pedagogy, and sociological inquires concerning achievement for individual students. These works often examine the macro and micro intricacies of educational policy and the decision- making process without attempting to relate those conversations to theory on the built environment. For those research projects that do enter the conversation, the major question raised focuses on how the school facility affects student achievement.3 Rarely do these studies document linear changes in ideology and goals for school building design, so the narrative and history of secondary school design in the United States is limited, fragmented, and non-sequential.

The high school is a symbol of the stability, enlightened status, and the future of a community. It reflects democratic ideals about citizenship that emerged with the establishment of the public school system. The symbolism and corresponding societal assumptions of uplift behind school architecture have been taken up by several scholars of architectural history. According to Dale Allen Gyure, whose research on schools

3 The vast majority of these studies concluded that there was a direct positive relationship between aesthetically pleasing and sound architectural design and student achievement. See Susan Black, “Achievement by Design,” American School Board Journal (October 2007): 39-41; American Federation of Teachers, “Building Minds, Minding Buildings: Turning Crumbling Schools into Environments for Learning,” (Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Teachers, 2006); C. Kenneth Tanner, “Effects of School Design on Student Outcomes,” Journal of Educational Administration 47, no. 3 (2009): 381-399; Carol Cash and Travis Twiford, “Improving Student Achievement and School Facilities in a Time of Limited Funding,” International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation 4, no. 2 (April - June 2009); Tuntufye S. Mwamwenda and Bernadette B. Mwamwenda, “School Facilities and Pupils' Academic Achievement,” Comparative Education 23, no. 2 (1987): 225-235; Cynthia Uline and Megan Tschannen- Moran, “The Walls Speak: The Interplay of Quality Facilities, School Climate, and Student Achievement,” Journal of Educational Administration 46, no. 1 (2008): 55-73; and Cynthia L. Uline, Megan Tschannen- Moran, and Thomas DeVere Wolsey, “The Walls Still Speak: The Stories Occupants Tell,” Journal of Educational Administration 47, no. 3 (2009): 400-426. However, one study argued that there is no corollary between standardized test scores (a measure of achievement) and the condition of school buildings in one sample from the state of Wyoming, and cautioned policymakers that promoting investments in facilities was unlikely to improve student learning. See Lawrence O. Picus, Scott F. Marion, Naomi Calvo, and William J. Glenn, “Understanding the Relationship Between Student Achievement and the Quality of Educational Facilities: Evidence From Wyoming,” Peabody Journal of Education 80 no. 3 (2005): 71. 8

focuses on a time period predating this dissertation, “the school building is a vitally important yet largely invisible component of American culture… the school building’s importance cannot be overestimated in a society like ours where education is not only compulsory but is also part of our national self-image.”4 Part of the motivation behind the creation of these urban high schools was propelled by the need to create symbolic cultural anchors in urban neighborhoods, in addition to the need to facilitate integration.

Furthermore, school design can be seen as a reinforcement of class structure, reflecting the intentions of those in charge of design and development choices, including architects, planners, city council and school board members, community activists, and school administrators, but rarely the students themselves.

Documenting school design after 1960 is significant in the narrative of the

postwar culture of the United States because school administrators and communities

around the country had a major challenge to accommodate an explosion in the population

in the wake of the baby boom generation. In 1958 Frank Magee, then president of the

Aluminum Company of America and contributor to Walter McQuade’s book

Schoolhouse: A Primer About the Building of the American Public School Plant,

emphasized that school construction had to meet the challenge of the over forty-five million children who had been born in the United States since World War II.5 This

4 Dale Allen Gyure, “The Transformation of the Schoolhouse: American Secondary School Architecture and Educational Reform, 1880-1920,” (PhD diss., University of Virginia, 2001), 1. Additionally, Amy Sosnouski’s dissertation “Visualizing Normality: Iconology and Symbolism in United States Schools,” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003) employs Foucault’s notion of “governmentality” to describe how imagery, from public art to textbook images, reinforces state hegemony and ideas of character building in public schools. Her research is useful as a model for methodologically analyzing intentionality in aesthetics and the resulting normalizing socio-cultural hegemony produced by design, an issue this dissertation will address in regards to architecture. 5 Frank L. Magee as quoted in Walter McQuade, ed., Schoolhouse: A Primer About the Building of the American Public School Plant (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1958), 11. 9

presented both a problem and an opportunity for Magee. His personal investment in

promoting aluminum products for future monetary gain was evident. Nevertheless, he predicted an impending dilemma that called for new design approaches, materials, aesthetics and program. The pre-World War II school plant would no longer be sufficient; drastic changes had to be made to accommodate the population boom. This issue would initially have the most impact on elementary school construction, with a delayed effect for the high school population. It was clear that innovative strategies had to be perfected on all levels of design, and that new materials and ways of thinking about the school environment were of utmost importance for the booming nation. The growth of the 1950s could not predict, however, the large-scale changes that were to occur in urban centers just a decade later.

Documentation of urban high schools in this dissertation is supported by the idea

that high school education was of increasing importance during that time. First, for many

people in the mid- to late- twentieth century a high school education was regarded as a culmination of the learning process. Graduation from high school was a rite of passage into adulthood, particularly with the low percentage of students who would go on to receive a college education. Less than half of the United States adult population had a high school diploma or higher until 1970 when the percentage of diplomas obtained nationwide reached 52.3%. For the African American population, this figure was even lower: in 1970 less than a third had a high school diploma, and a little over half of the

African American population had a high school diploma by 1980.6 Additionally, by

6 Nicole S. Stoops, A Half-Century of Learning: Historical Statistics on Educational Attainment in the United States, 1940 to 2000 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000), http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/education/introphct41.html (accessed February 18, 10

1980 only 16.2% of the adult population held a bachelor’s degree or higher, while the

percentage of African Americans with a bachelor’s degree in 1980 was only 8.4%.7 The

low numbers of college degree seekers in the United States reiterates the significance of a

high school education at that time. Therefore, for most communities, no matter the racial

demographic, the high school building represented a locale where the level of educational

attainment that would be the zenith of their developmental training in their formative

years.

Given the relatively low incidence of college attendance, the ideology of the high

school and the building itself held a position of great esteem and cultural significance.

High schools acted as cultural anchors in neighborhood, with many socially-oriented

events taking place within and around the buildings. As the idea of community-based

planning gained popularity in the late 1960s and 1970s with the advent of community

development centers, the school’s role as catalyst for increased neighborhood

involvement was seen as a central factor in planning for the future.

High school design between 1960 and 1980 noticeably departed in materiality,

programming, and aesthetics from its 1950s predecessors. Riverview High School in

Sarasota, Florida, was a quintessential late 1950s glass box that was hailed as pioneering

in the field of educational architecture, and highlighted in various architectural and

educational journals. Designed by Paul Rudolph in 1957 it is quite possibly the

2008). First figures from Table 1. “Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a High School Diploma or Higher by Sex and Age, for the United States: 1940 to 2000.” Figures for African American population taken from Table 3 “Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a High School Diploma or Higher by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin, for the United States: 1940 to 2000.” Information obtained from 1950 to 2000 based on a sample. 7 Ibid. First figures from Table 2 “Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a Bachelor's Degree or Higher by Sex and Age, for the United States: 1940 to 2000.” Figures for African American population from Table 4 “Percent of the Population 25 Years and Over with a Bachelor's Degree or Higher by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin, for the United States: 1940 to 2000.” 11

archetype of building architecture critic Walter McQuade had in mind a year later when

he stated that “most teenagers, there is no doubt about it, like ‘modern’ – they like glass

walls… horizontal lines, and all the other earmarks of the modern style.”8 McQuade’s

sentiments would be echoed in many arguments that supported the need to demolish and

replace turn-of-the-twentieth-century buildings, such as the old Dunbar, which no longer

responded to the needs of students aesthetically or programmatically.

The design aspects that dealt directly with program in McQuade’s 1958 book,

such as increased privacy as pupils get older, culminating in a high school setting of individualized and insular classrooms, would be vastly different from those supported with the widely popular open plan of the late 1960s. The adaptation of the open plan idea, from curriculum to spatial organization, was an international phenomenon that had

roots in Great Britain and reached areas as disparate as Israel and the United States. In

1960 Edward A. Campbell, field architect for the University of Chicago Laboratory High

School, declared “out of the frustration and indecision in trying to establish a people-

oriented plan of educational programming, one term has emerged as a real escape clause

to toss from school planners to the architect – flexibility.”9 Plans for a “dome-shaped

school” with an open, flexible design were announced as early as 1961 in the New York

Times.10 The period between 1960 and 1980 witnessed the evolution, proliferation, and

dissolution of the flexible ideal and open education phenomenon, which was

characterized by new practices in curriculum, teaching strategies, and classroom design.

By 1980 the trends of open education curriculum and open-plan design had met with

8 McQuade, Schoolhouse, 34. 9 Edward A. Campbell, “New Spaces and Places for Learning,” School Review 68, no. 3 (Autumn 1960): 347. 10 Leonard Buder, “New Design Studied For City's Schools,” New York Times, February 17, 1961, 1. 12

increased criticism and lost their momentum, and school administrators and architects worked towards other approaches to school design.

This investigation is useful to the tide of growing studies on the urban crisis because it brings school design to the forefront of community activism, highlights class struggles within the African American community, and adds cultural heritage and institutional memory to the discussion of identity politics in an era of major sociopolitical shifts in the American city. Scholars in American studies, urban studies, geography, historic preservation, and cultural studies are embracing studies of the 1960s and 1970s city, a move that is granting a greater perspective and understanding of contemporary history and obstacles that many cities are still working to rectify today. While there are a number of studies that talk about community activism and identity politics in the city on the micro level – an excellent example is Arlene Dávila’s Barrio Dreams: Puerto

Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City – many more favor the top down approach.11

These works focus on urban planners, grand schema, and solidifying a narrative that overshadows agency on the part of local protagonists. The interventions that this dissertation makes include deconstructing the notion that urban renewal after the Federal

Housing Act of 1954 was monolithic in intent, that capitalist schemes characterized all renewal plans, and that local historic preservation activity only arose in opposition to large-scale redevelopment plans that were the work of members of local city chambers of commerce. While these pre-existing ideas are exceptionally important in understanding the American city of the 1960s and 1970s, they are by no means the only narratives of significance about post-industrial city dynamics. Additionally, this dissertation analyzes

11 Arlene Dávila, Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 13

the motives and methods that characterize the work of local figures in the creation of

large-scale public high schools, and discusses how race and class play a part in these decisions. Many members of these local communities who antagonized in support of the construction of large-scale schools saw their work as symbolic of the larger pro-Black sentiments of the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements.

It is important to look at the physical structure of schools themselves, but it is equally important to understand the transitioning pedagogy in school curriculum at that time, which was a direct result of the Black Power, Civil Rights, and Women’s

Liberation movements and a push to integrate public schools. Literature on education reform and policy in the 1960s and 1970s all but ignores major advances in design.

Instead, major changes in pedagogy and case study battles with integration are the highlights of many literary texts on education. In Urban Education in the 1970’s:

Reflections and a Look Ahead editor A. Harry Passow, long-time professor of education at Columbia Teacher’s College, noted that “the traditional educational goals, largely middle-class, majority group oriented, have come under scrutiny as to their appropriateness and value…building more relevant curricula is one of the reasons advanced for greater community control of schools.”12

The inclusive rhetoric of reform in public education often linked the idea of

“openness” in curriculum with the physical structure of the schools. This rhetoric of

openness and inclusivity was also related to the push to officially desegregate city high

schools, which had operated under a system of de facto segregation nationally, even after

the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education declared separate facilities as unconstitutional.

12 A. Harry Passow, ed. Urban Education in the 1970’s: Reflections and a Look Ahead (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1971), 21. 14

However, the goals of integration would prove to be exceedingly difficult as neighborhood demographics in each city began to shift as a result of middle-class white and black families moving into segregated suburban enclaves. Finally, looking at the architectural vocabulary and the programmatic aspects of the plans of the high schools built during a time of sweeping curriculum changes will shed light on how educators, architects, and administrators imagined the impact of the architectural design of a school

– including the world within and the environment outside of the building.

Between 1960 and 1980 several major trends appeared in the design of urban secondary schools. These are directly related to regional differences, city and population density, varying school boards’ attempts to deal with desegregation, and regional growth in the form of suburbanization and annexation. For Philadelphia and Washington in the north, urban schools after 1960 were typically multi-story buildings of monumental proportion with Brutalist features. One of the buildings covered in the dissertation, the new William Penn High School in Philadelphia, was designed and built between 1966 and 1974 by architecture firm Mitchell/Giurgola, and has been noted by architectural historians and critics alike for its enterprising design. At that time of construction the school was identified as a quintessential model for open-plan school design. Architect

Romaldo Giurgola also had connections with a loosely associated group of design professionals at the University of Pennsylvania who were extremely active during the time of the William Penn High School’s construction, and who significantly changed theoretical ideas about the meaning and function of architecture and city planning. The creation of large-scale high schools with modernist aesthetics was by no means confined to the north, or even to large cities for that matter. However, all school design between

1960 and 1980 did not follow the trend seen in the north. For Atlanta in the south, urban schools resembled box pavilions that ever so slightly harkened back to aesthetics advocated by the proponents of the International Style, at least on the exterior.

Comparative analysis of the school design trends in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and

Washington, is useful for numerous reasons, and all three cities considered in the dissertation have enough differences to make them interesting, yet a significant amount of similarities to facilitate useful comparison. First, one is able to look at differences in approach in major metropolitan regions on the East Coast with Philadelphia in the North,

Washington as a federal mediator between North and South, and Atlanta in the South.

Even within the regional groupings of North and South substantial differences exist between cities. Social, political, and economic variances between Philadelphia and

Washington, for example, include industry, potential for city expansion, and government policies that affected the desegregation process. Atlanta vied for position as the “capital of the New South;” while it practiced academic tokenism by allowing a disproportionately small number of African American students to attend white high schools. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, plans to promote desegregation in public high schools and creating cultural and social capital in the cities were at the forefront of restructuring these major urban districts. Public school boards for all three cities attempted to rectify issues of segregation in the 1960s by not only rezoning school districts and busing students, but by physically transforming infrastructure in the form of larger schools, school clusters, and urban parks, that would aid in the desegregation process.

The relatively high and stable population of established black communities that

include varied and complicated stratifications of social hierarchies makes these cities

particularly useful for the study of demographic influence on urban policy. The presence

of this population in all three cities aids in examining the urban policy and local activities

concerning school design. These policies are investigated in relation to the idea of the

inner city which was growing in theoretical juxtaposition to the commercialized and civic

minded downtown of urban renewal planners. The term’s origin is closely associated

with the Chicago School of Sociology, which dominated urban ethnic studies from the

1920s to the 1960s. Urban sociologists Robert Park and Ernest Burgess, in their 1925 ground breaking study The City: Suggestions for the Study of Human Nature in the

Urban Environment, conceptualized the city as a set of concentric rings, with the core made of the central business district, followed outward by the transitional zone, the zone of independent worker’s homes, the zone of better residences, and the commuters’ zone.13 The sociologists noted a correlation between distance from the center of the city

and increased social status, so that the least wealthy and the majority of the vice in a city

was believed to be centrally located, with an increase in wealth and safety as one moves

further outwards from the city center.

While there are many problems that have been associated with this analysis, the

underlying theoretical frameworks that associate the center city and the inner city with

increased vice and blight have persisted and only exasperated racial tensions and fears

that directly informed public policy decisions between 1960 and 1980. The social

stratification in Washington and Atlanta in particular between inner-city “low class”

13 Robert E. Park, Ernest Burgess, and R. D. McKenzie, The City: Suggestions for the Study of Human Nature in the Urban Environment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1925). 17

blacks and middle-class blacks who lived in socio-cultural racial enclaves had distinct influence on the creation of new black schools in the two cities.

Presently all three cities have a black population that is the highest percentage ethnic group in the city, and the battle ground for that transition was fought after World

War II with increased white flight to the suburbs. Atlanta and Washington also experienced black flight to the suburbs as well, and have several major neighboring counties and suburbs with affluent majority black populations.14 Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington experienced a relative amount of urban decline reflective of larger national trends, including high unemployment rates, and building stock that was overused and overrun by a somewhat transient renter population. Understanding and detailing the complicated relationship between race and urban policy during this time period is critical to this investigation. As urban historian Ronald H. Bayor stated in his 1996 study of

Atlanta:

Comprehensive and wide-ranging studies on this issue [of race relations] are needed for many cities to understand the long-term and often debilitating effects of racial factors in policy decisions and city shaping, but evidence already suggests that this factor was important… various cities’ physical and institutional development- e.g. neighborhoods, health care services, the school system- were shaped by racial factors.15

Investigating the urban policy and city planning of Atlanta, Philadelphia, and

Washington with these factors in mind lays the groundwork for a nuanced approach to

understanding the context of the urban city between 1960 and 1980. Additionally, all

14 The Atlanta metropolitan area East Point, Redan, and Stone Mountain suburbs and Dekalb Count all have majority black populations. The Washington metropolitan area’s Prince George’s County in Maryland is the most affluent majority black county in the nation- Dekalb County is the second. Philadelphia, on the other hand, did not experience a major shift in middle and upper class residents resettling in suburban areas adjacent to the city. See Phoebe H. Cottingham, “Black Income and Metropolitan Residential Dispersion,” Urban Affairs Review 10, no. 3 (1975): 273-296. 15 Ronald H. Bayor, Race and the Shaping of Twentieth Century Atlanta (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), xv. 18

cities, except Philadelphia, experienced black political leadership in the form of a black

mayor for the first time by the end of the 1970s.16 Even in the wake of such major symbolic changes in the local government, clear unrest in the form of riots affected all cities in the 1960s, indicating larger, more deeply rooted problems besides lack of black representation in the local government. The effects of racial discrimination, from segregated housing, services, and schools, job discrimination, and lack of potential social advancement weighed heavily on black residents of all three cities. The hope for change in the social condition through the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements was clear. The connection between the built environment and the idea of a renewed power structure in the African American community is a recurring theme in the urban policy and related architectural innovations in the cities. While each city had its specific problems and methods of rectifying them, the symbolism and the idea of large-scale change that

would come with the mayoral black leadership was a common thread amongst the

examples.

Atlanta’s urban decline was not as pronounced as its neighbors to the north,

mainly the result of a vastly different spatial organization; however, the city was affected

by white flight and subsequent plans for large-scale urban renewal in the central business

district. Atlanta embarked on major annexation programs from the 1950s through the

1970s, putting in an effort to keep the political balance of white majority voters, many of whom had left the city proper for the suburbs. Additionally, both Washington and

Philadelphia underwent extensive restructuring of social, cultural, and academic

16 Walter E. Washington was appointed mayor-commissioner of Washington by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967. Maynard Jackson, Jr. became Atlanta’s first black mayor in 1974, and Philadelphia’s first black elected mayor, Wilson Goode, was elected in 1984. 19

institutions as a result of preparation for the Bicentennial of 1976, with development corporations, government agencies, and other organizations forming collaboratives that effectively influenced planning policy for each city. These conditions provide the setting for the battles over commercial interests, racially motivated policy decisions, and urban public schools in the era of the post-industrial city. Philadelphia’s unique position as a point of origin for much of the new architectural and planning theory through an active architectural faculty at the University of Pennsylvania made it a case study city for 1960s urban redevelopment. Washington also acquired this position as the seat of the federal government and its assumed role as a groundbreaking “model city” in desegregation and comprehensive planning initiatives.

The dissertation focuses on six high schools and one junior high, and school selection criteria for the research project included two main points: construction between

1960 and 1980 and location in a residential neighborhood that has had a majority black population preceding the advent of the World War II. These neighborhoods would have been cited as black enclaves that would benefit from school integration and targeted for busing plans or other approaches to desegregation. The socioeconomic status of these black neighborhoods varied; however, the residents of the neighborhoods were actively engaged in the discourse on school construction, despite varying levels of authority in the decision-making process and, in some cases, the lack thereof. The facilities examined in

Washington include Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Howard D. Woodson High

School, and Shaw Junior High School. In Philadelphia the survey covers William Penn

High School and West Philadelphia University City High School. The high schools examined in Atlanta include Charles Lincoln Harper High School (now Harper-Archer

Middle School) and Frederick Douglass High School. Schools that operated before desegregation such as Dunbar and Armstrong Manual Training high schools in

Washington, and Booker T. Washington and David T. Howard high schools in Atlanta provide a starting point and contrasting evidence of design, from which there was a rapid departure in post-integration architecture.

As it stands, there is a dearth of literature on school architecture. It is unusual to find in-depth studies on the programming, aesthetics, and psychological impact of design of schools. The lack of scholarly research in this area exists not only in the architectural history, but also in educational history and policy. While architectural and educational journals have often highlighted successful design case studies for schools, larger literary works that chronicle the evolution of school design and its impact are not common. Dale

Allen Gyure’s “The Transformation of the Schoolhouse: American Secondary School

Architecture and Educational Reform, 1880-1920” and Amy S. Weisser’s “Institutional

Revisions: Modernism and American Public Schools From the Depression Through the

Second World War” are two dissertations that lay the groundwork for the time period leading up to the urban crisis era on which this dissertation focuses. Those works highlight how pedagogical, health, and curriculum concerns added to the evolution of school architecture.17

The post-World War II condition of major cities is a subject that is taken up enthusiastically and weighs heavily in the realm of work by sociologists, urban historians,

17 Dale Allen Gyure, “The Transformation of the Schoolhouse: American Secondary School Architecture and Educational Reform, 1880-1920,” (PhD diss., University of Virginia, 2001) and Amy S. Weisser, “Institutional Revisions: Modernism and American Public Schools from the Depression through the Second World War,” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1995). As Gyure notes, advances in cognitive learning theory and discourses about health resulted in environmental conditions such as increased natural light and improved air circulation for school buildings during the period of reform from 1880 and 1920. 21

and cultural theorists. Histories and critiques of urban planning policies come from all

levels of expertise in the field, from novice to expert planner. Jane Jacobs’ The Death

and Life of Great American Cities is a contemporary landmark critique written for a lay

audience covering the strategies that urban planners employed in the 1940s and 1950s,

particularly the large-scale automobile-centered projects, as evidenced by Robert Moses’

influence in New York City.18 Carl Abbott’s essay “Five Downtown Strategies: Policy

Discourse and Downtown Planning Since 1945” in the compilation Urban Public Policy:

Historical Modes and Methods edited by historian Martin V. Melosi is written with the

planning professional in mind.19 Abbot argues that the inability of policy planners to

understand the dynamics and tension of the downtown area caused them to create policy

initiatives that, at every turn, were almost 180-degree shifts from their immediate

predecessors. Critiques such as these are useful for analyzing urban policy between 1960

and 1980, particularly policy dealing with the creation of downtown as the central

business district and the role of urban renewal in that process. The evolution of the idea

and the place known as downtown, interchangeable in the late 1960s and early 1970s

with the idea of a central business district, shaped public policy and urban renewal

agendas, and re-arranged the face of the center city. This dissertation will use the

evolving imagery of downtown and the growing interest in a central business district

coupled with a civic center as a foil to developments in the African American

community.

18 Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961). 19 Martin V. Melosi, ed., Urban Public Policy: Historical Modes and Methods (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993). 22

Thomas Sugrue’s The Origins of Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar

Detroit looks at many factors in the condition of that city, from racially motivated housing policy and job discrimination to community politics.20 Sugrue argued that the

postwar and subsequently post-industrial city was not only continuously in flux, but

marked a period of transformation in the structure of the city unseen since the days of the

industrial revolution. One of the biggest factors in this marked change was the creation

and expansion of highway systems, in addition to the G.I. Bill, which all aided in large-

scale suburbanization.

Cultural historians such as Eric Avila and Lizabeth Cohen focus on issues of

popular culture, leisure, and conspicuous consumption in Popular Culture in the Age of

White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles and A Consumer’s Republic:

The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America respectively.21 These books,

which span a time frame of approximately thirty years, investigate the city/suburb

dichotomy, and the creation of the middle-class cultural standard. Scholarly postwar

literature on the city, however, focuses heavily on housing, whether it is in the form of

urban public housing projects, modular houses, or the creation of residential tracts such

as Levittown. While these investigations generally neglect the built environment of

education and the sweeping changes in educational architecture, they are particularly

useful to a study on urban high school design because they supply the context in which

the modern day idea of the “inner city” comes to fruition.

20 Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 21 Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) and Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003). 23

Secondary sources specific to each city’s growth, politics, social economy, and

architecture during that time period helped bring out nuances between each city. These

nuances are important in determining influential factors in the different design strategies

for the high schools in each city. For example, studies on Atlanta politics and policy such

as political historians Ronald Bayor’s Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century

Atlanta and Clarence Stone’s Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946-1988 gave

accounts on governmental policy that affected the city during the time period

investigated.22 Urbanist Howard Gillette's Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning,

and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. is another source that shed light on

policy decisions made during the Home Rule period in Washington, one in which

residents gained increased political authority, however briefly.23 Carl Abbot’s Political

Terrain: Washington, D.C., from Tidewater Town to Global Metropolis not only

documented Washington’s tenuous and highly convoluted relationship with the federal

government, but placed the city within a regional complex of cities and explained the

growth and effects of economy and industry in the city.24

The primary sources used in the dissertation provide insight to local issues such as

city council and school board decisions on high school architecture, arguments

concerning social issues and historic preservation in the African American community,

advances in educational policy, and the effects local activism of the built environment.

Resources include school board meeting minutes and correspondence, and newspaper

22 Ronald Bayor, Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996) and Clarence Stone, Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946-1988 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1989). 23 Howard Gillette Jr., Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995). 24 Carl Abbot, Political Terrain: Washington, D.C., from Tidewater Town to Global Metropolis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999). 24

clippings on high school topics from the Atlanta Daily World, Washington Post, New

York Times, and Philadelphia’s Evening Bulletin. Other useful sources were city council meeting minutes and correspondence, school yearbooks, architect’s drawings and pamphlets, and photographs. Community group meeting minutes as well as federal and local agency pamphlets, brochures, and project reports from the Redevelopment Land

Agency in Washington, the West Philadelphia Corporation, and the Philadelphia City

Planning Commission were all consulted in this study.

None of the urban crisis high schools covered in this dissertation are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places, although the M Street School building, the predecessor to Dunbar High School, is included on the National Register. The majority of the information in the archives related to the preservation bodies of each city and state will pre-date the time frame of interest in this study. Many high schools that were built after 1960 have yet to achieve landmark status or designation as historically and/or architecturally significant. This dissertation will create a narrative of continuity that will enable preservation professionals and school administrators to explicitly show where their schools, designed post-1960, fit within national and local architectural trends. The context provided will be useful when these schools become eligible for landmark status, on either the local or national level. Additionally, the dissertation will extend the narrative of public school design that Gyure and Weisser have started with their investigations of public high school design that date from 1880 to 1920 and from the

1930s to 1945, respectively.

Incorporating literature about national architectural trends during the twenty-year period by way of newspapers as well as school and architectural magazines will show the

prime examples of key design that administrators, policy makers, and architects consulted

in deciding how to proceed with new school design in their respective cities. It is

imperative to understand the highly publicized and often praised cutting-edge

developments to see how each school board either supported or deviated from idealized

designs for high schools at that time. Many journals on education such as The School

Review and American Educational Research Journal heavily covered advances in the psychological underpinnings of education reform between 1960 and 1980, with subject matter including integration, open education, design of classrooms, and diversifying curriculum in secondary schools.

One of the major goals of this investigation to be specific and thorough enough to be noteworthy on a local level in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington, but also contextualized enough to serve as an example for similar research in other cities. This comparative analysis offers both local and national frameworks for investigation.

Additionally, this dissertation demonstrates how collective memory, local and federal

politics, race, class, urban policy, pedagogy, and aesthetic symbolism all come together

to inform how and where schools are built. It also highlights the influence these schools

have on their communities. It will shed light on an understudied type of architecture that

is a staple in how cities define themselves, and show how the building can reflect larger

societal issues of a community. The dissertation is an integrative approach to

understanding the built environment that weaves together the academic fields of

architectural history, urban studies, cultural studies, educational policy, social history,

and historic preservation. Finally, it will set a contextual framework for future

preservation efforts as the buildings considered in the study approach and pass the

generally held fifty-year historic requirement for inclusion on the National Register.25

The dissertation is composed of an introduction, four chapters, and a conclusion

that chart the relationships between educational policy, architectural design, community

politics and urban renewal, and historic preservation. The first chapter examines the

progression of educational pedagogy pushing the design of the schools buildings,

including issues of desegregation, individualized curriculum, compensatory programs,

and team teaching. The chapter lays the contextual framework for the dissertation

because it addresses federal, state, and local initiatives for expanding educational policy.

The chapter illustrates how educational reform was primarily focused on increased

funding for compensatory programs in urban schools.

The idea of inclusivity in curriculum as a result of the Civil Rights Movement was

prevalent, as was the increased need for community control of school policy. This

inclusive rhetoric of reform in public education often linked the idea of “openness” in

curriculum structure with the physical structure of the schools. This rhetoric of openness

and inclusivity was also related to the push to officially desegregate city high schools,

which had operated under a system of de facto segregation nationally, even after the

ruling of Brown v. Board of Education declaring separate facilities as unconstitutional.

Finally, the architectural vocabulary and the programmatic aspects of the plans of the

high schools shed light on how educators, architects, and administrators imagined the

impact of the architectural design of a school. I argue that the major failing of education

25 While a number of significant recent past buildings have been included on the National Register, the generally held consensus is that there should be at least fifty years of historical distance from the construction of a building to adequately contextualize and analyze its significance. 27

reform during this time was the conviction that education could solve all of the social

welfare issues of beleaguered urban centers. When this idealism was tested many

programs, some of which were ill-suited for the task from inception, failed under the

pressure of high expectations.

The second chapter of the dissertation focuses on the evolution from "flexible"

school design to the adoption of the open plan, the nature of expression and materiality,

and the siting of the schools. The chapter pays particular attention to the racialized

geographies of urban renewal and expansion in the cities. This section documents the architectural trends that epitomized the historical milieu of the 1960s and 1970s that are

directly related to regional differences, city and population density, varying school

boards’ attempts to deal with desegregation, and regional growth in the form of

suburbanization and annexation.

The main argument of the second chapter is that programmatic evolution in the

form of the open-plan school created a functional conflict with the sculptural structure of

buildings that attempted to embrace the idea of planning for security and community. In

fact, these structures, which embraced flexibility in curriculum and in plan, were overly

fortified, oppressive, and focused inward, a stark contrast to the idea of expansion of curriculum and the fluidity of the individualized learning process. In many ways, even as these schools were created to act as community anchors and sources of a Black Pride

ideology, they physically turned their backs on the communities they were meant to

serve.

The third chapter covers community politics and urban renewal in the cities and

neighborhoods involved with these major design projects. This chapter charts growing

political activism focusing on education, political appointments, and urban renewal.

School boards and city councils were seeing the most significant African American

representation in their ranks. Rufus E. Clement was the first African American elected to

a public office since Reconstruction in Atlanta, and the first African American to sit on

the education board. Cultural and individual empowerment was the height of potential

for change; however, there was a disconnect in the power of representation and results in equity across racial and social lines. This chapter addresses that rupture, contrasting the potential for change with the reality of the war against the “urban crisis” that was being waged in major cities suffering from post-industrial job loss and concentrated poverty.

Riots and urban renewal factor heavily in the third chapter as lenses through which one can begin to understand the struggles arising from power structures in Atlanta,

Philadelphia, and Washington. On one hand it is imperative to recognize the cultural empowerment occurring as a result of African American leaders being elected to city, state, and federal public office positions. On the other it is equally critical to understand how riots and urban renewal left cities in shambles and disconnected, how communities were literally cut off from resources and jobs, and how school construction attempted to alleviate some of the problems that the riots and urban renewal caused.

The final chapter grapples with change over time in educational policy, neighborhood turnover and/or decline, and aging building stock. The chapter introduces cultural heritage preservation by examining the conflict surrounding the demolition of the

1916 Dunbar High School building in the early 1970s, which made way for the present building and sports facilities. In that case study the groundwork is laid for a class-based argument about the meaning of preservation in the African American community, an

issue that is striking in this example because Dunbar was the first public high school

established for African Americans in the United States.

This chapter documents the rise in awareness for the need to preserve remnants of

educational history as a means of cultural preservation, particularly with the growing

interest in African American educational facilities as evidenced with the Rosenwald

schools of the south. Though the interest for Rosenwald schools has increased, many

other African American educational facilities that were abandoned after desegregation

were demolished, converted into primary or secondary schools or retrofitted for

residential use. These changes highlight the loss of identity that occurs with the destruction of a community anchor such as a public high school. The chapter also

examines the relationship of the African American community to the historic

preservation movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and analyzes the contemporary struggles

for maintaining both the physical plant of the schools as well as the vitality of their

purpose.

This dissertation challenges the way we understand the relationship between

school design, educational policy, race, and the urban environment. It takes an

understudied building type – the high school plant in the age of the urban crisis – and

situates it in the context of educational facilities planning, the Great Society War on

Poverty education programs, trends in avant-garde architectural design, community

politics, urban renewal, riots, and heritage preservation. This study not only sheds light

on a failed idealism of design for education, but it speaks to larger issues surrounding the

original intent in design and the lessons that can be learned from ideas that informed the design of the buildings. Finally, the dissertation resituates urban high school design as an

important component of community activism during a time when cities where being abandoned wholesale for greener pastures in the suburbs.

Chapter One

Education: The Panacea of the Ills of a Divided Society

For more than a decade, U.S. schools had been subjected to withering attacks, blamed for everything from the launch of Sputnik to urban decay. They were faulted for not developing enough engineers and scientists; for being racially segregated and hostile to disadvantaged children; and for producing uncreative graduates who seldom questioned authority. Critics thought that the schools could be the vehicle for winning the Cold War, furthering the civil rights struggle, and roiling a 1950s culture of conformity that suffocated imagination.

Larry Cuban, 2004

The post-World War II American culture of economic expansion, formation of a

middle-class hegemonic ideal, suburbanization, and conspicuous consumption revealed

optimism about the emergence of the United States as a world power in the wake of the

Allied victory over the Germans in 1945.1 However, the inequity in prosperity was not lost on African Americans in the United States, some of whom were returning G.I.s denied veterans’ benefits and the dream of owning a home in the rapidly expanding suburbs, as well as young students denied an education with equal resources as whites in the public school system. For many American historians 1954 was the watershed year of

change in educational policy with the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education that stated

separate educational facilities for black and white students were inherently unequal and

therefore unconstitutional. The year is seen as a turning point in educational policy;

however, change was neither swift nor distributed equitably in cities across the nation.

Federal and local officials were concerned with how the desegregation process would

affect the urban norm where de facto residential segregation still ruled the way of life for

many primary and secondary school-aged children.

1 See Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003). 32

Black urban communities were becoming increasingly cut off from resources in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the loss of a solid tax base in older sections of cities where many impoverished blacks resided affected city fund distribution for these urban schools. When it became evident that desegregation was not a viable option for most urban schools, federal initiatives with plans for compensatory education became a way of improving the learning experience for students. These initiatives, including the War on

Poverty, were designed specifically to increase aid in areas that witnessed the combined processes of segregation, de-industrialization, and suburbanization. Over twenty years after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, scholars of psychology and history wondered if the institutions established to educate black youth could also, through compensatory education and a re-defined educational pedagogy, help serve to eradicate societal problems that the black youth faced. They advocated education as the “panacea of the ills of a ‘divided’ society.”2

Educational reform attempted to battle problems in schools through a multi- pronged attack on pedagogy, policy, and design. For most school districts, however, desegregation was more rhetoric than reality. While various ideas for promoting desegregation included restructuring the built environment of school landscapes through highly conceptualized models such as the school park, a design that condensed primary and secondary school facilities to a single site, these proposals were exacerbated by white flight and residential segregation. The process of integration, an ideological policy distinct in implementation from legal desegregation, was less than successful due to local calls for neighborhood schools and harsh reactions to busing. The tension between a

2 Louis N. Williams and Mohamed El-Khawas, “A Philosophy of Black Education,” Journal of Negro Education 47, no. 2 (Spring 1978): 177. 33 regional integrative approach such as the school park and solidifying the concept of neighborhood schools that did not necessitate busing is evident in the design of new urban schools. These schools were built to embody the school park ideal of a large community center, but were situated in sites that reinforced neighborhood racial segregation patterns. The uplifting idea of expansion – in terms of pedagogy, integrative practices, and design program – was coupled with the reality of racial entrenchment and isolation.

Theodore Hesburgh, then president of the University of Notre Dame, stated in

1971 that “schools necessarily exist in the larger society of which they are a part and the injustices of society are mirrored in the schools themselves…. In short, the failure of the schools reflects the failure of the larger society.”3 This is an important lens with which to view the challenges and changes that occurred in urban school districts between 1960 and

1980. If these schools failed, as was the general consensus opinion, then why did they fail? What were their strong points and successes if any? How did local communities attempt to eradicate the downward spiral in the educational programs of the time? What was the nature of the relationship between schools, community activism, federal and local policy, urbanism, suburbanization, and racism?

The compensatory federal plans were not particularly successful because they lacked a structured methodology for implementation, project assessment, and ensuring perpetuation of programs. The outside involvement on local matters coupled with lackluster integration tactics and the waning Civil Rights sentiment gave way for a more

Afrocentric approach to making schools culturally accessible to students and governed by

3 Theodore M. Hesburgh, “The Challenge to Education,” in “Strategies for Educational Change,” special issue, Journal of Negro Education 40, no. 3 (Summer 1971): 292. 34 the community within which they resided. This Afrocentric approach is a precursor in pedagogical thought that later became a physical reality in the design of the schools. It also foreshadowed programs in these new schools that turned attention to student as an individual within a larger collective society. The community and pedagogical emphasis on creating an environment in which the student felt like his/her personal and cultural attributes were meaningful worked to recognize “difference” in a positive way. In effect, school pedagogy and design in the late 1960s and early 1970s attempted to celebrate diversity well before the term developed the loaded connotations of contemporary culture.

Between 1960 and 1980 concepts about the learning process were loosening and expanding even as many high schools, particularly those serving African American neighborhoods, were becoming more fortified and inward-looking. This tendency did not negate the increasing role these schools were to play in the community, however. In fact the communal aspect of school leadership, organization, and programming was elevated in the 1960s and 1970s. These schools attempted to tackle so many issues at once that the solutions were grounded in the present and often did not take into consideration the long term challenges that cities and neighborhoods would confront. This is also true of the multitude of federal programs aimed at rectifying the increasing socioeconomic concerns of urban centers.

School reform was based on the middle-class idea that education was the key to a more successful future. Educators and policy makers attempted to cure the problems of the urban psyche by abandoning attempts at desegregation to favoring a more Afrocentric approach to curriculum and pedagogy. Major shifts could be seen in administration,

community organizing, and identity politics, as well as the physical manifestations of the

schools themselves. Racial considerations were tantamount in decisions regarding urban

education policy, as David K. Cohen, then associate professor at the Harvard Graduate

School of Education poignantly stated in 1969: “The body of experience we

conveniently denominate urban education is nothing more or less than a series of

profound convulsions over the role which race will play in the organization of schools,

and, indeed, in the organization of urban life generally.”4 The extreme polarization of race, economics, and design concepts during the era of the urban crisis reinforces this idea. However, a universal trend in education pedagogy and policy across racial lines in the late 1960s was the rise of the open-plan school adopted from British models.

School desegregation and large-scale migration of blacks from the south to

northern cities during and after World War II, while initially seen as beneficial, soon

exacerbated de facto residential racial and economic segregation in major cities. With

middle-class whites and blacks fleeing cities, the people and places that remained

suffered from concentrated poverty with lack of representation, and schools were seen as

particularly needy for resources. Middle- and upper-class whites who stayed in the city also began to rely more heavily than they had previously on private schools for the education of their children. African American communities drew on black militant ideas of Black power and pride, and supported community control of schools, so the schools would reflect the educational and cultural needs of the community. However, in many cases the effort was too little too late, the sociological issues in neighborhoods were much bigger than the schools themselves, and the infrastructure and resources needed to

4 David K. Cohen, “Education and Race,” History of Education Quarterly 9, no. 3 (Autumn 1969): 281. 36

maintain the high expectations of idealistic community organizing were not available for

long-term educational goals.

After World War II the educational capital of metropolitan areas moved to the

suburbs at the same time that city centers experienced an influx of black migrants from

the south in the Second Great Migration. According to historian Michael Clapper: “In

1945, the best schools in the United States stood in American cities but by 1960,

suburban schools had assumed the mantle of educational leadership.”5 This observation

is extremely significant given the fact that between 1950 and 1966, 86% of the increase

in the United States black population occurred in “center city” areas with another 12%

increase occurring in the “urban fringe.”6 The 98% net increase urban growth is

reflective of the mass migration of blacks from the South to northern industrial cities.

These residents lived in increasingly isolated and aging urban neighborhoods, with school

systems and educational facilities that were deteriorating at a rapid rate in contrast to the

considerable boom and innovation of suburban school systems and facilities. This

chapter analyzes how educators, administrators, and city officials reacted to this

discrepancy and how the ruling against segregation impacted the urban educational

landscape that emerged in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington.

Segregation in City Schools

De facto segregation was declared illegal in 1954 with the passage of the Brown vs. Board of Education federal legislation and the Bolling vs. Sharpe legislation in

5 Michael Clapper, “The Constructed World of Postwar Philadelphia Area Schools: Site Selection, Architecture, and the Landscape of Inequality,” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2008), 4. 6 Faustine C. Jones, “Black Americans and the City: A Historical Survey,” in “Education in the Black Cities,” special issue, Journal of Negro Education 42, no. 3(Summer 1973): 72. 37

Washington. Washington was considered a potential “shining example” of integration for the rest of the United States according to Walter Tobriner, president of Washington

Board of Education from 1957 to 1961. In Washington, as in other American cities, desegregation did not change the racial makeup of majority black schools. Instead, many majority white schools turned over to majority black student populations after white parents began pulling their children out of schools to avoid confronting the issue of integration.

The major differences between the concepts of segregation, desegregation, and integration as policy tools are critical to understanding how rhetoric and reality were at odds in the era of desegregation. As social scientist Frederick A. Rodgers stated in 1975:

When desegregation is used as a policy boundary, there is an attempt to provide a semblance of equality and equity in the creation and operation of social institutions. While desegregation affirms the rights of individuals to participate equally and equitably, it does not guarantee that all will receive their fair share of the associated privileges.7

This conundrum is clear in the case of desegregation of public schools in the United

States. Even as desegregation was deemed illegal, equality was not gained immediately, and some argue that it never was. Additionally, desegregation does not guarantee integration. Rodgers defined integration as “a policy boundary [that] is probably best thought of as a higher level of desegregation. Integration deals more with operational than with legal aspects of individual participation patterns (emphasis added).”8

Therefore, the legal aspect of desegregation was fully effectual before the operational aspect of integration was. This was clear even as school boards across the nation

7 Frederick A. Rodgers, The Black High School and Its Community (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1975), 5. 8 Ibid., 3. 38

experimented with tactical methods from busing to re-arranging school zones to promote

integration well into the late 1970s.

Just as troubling as the disconnect between the legal aspect of desegregation and the operational aspect of integration is the idea expressed by various political critics that desegregation is partially to blame for the decline of previously all-black schools. These

segregated all-black schools are remembered as social centers where blacks could

convene for scholastic as well as recreational activities that were part of a community

building process. These schools offered resources in human capital that were highly

concentrated because of the lack of options for black students and teachers to teach or to

get an education elsewhere.

While racial demographics in segregated black schools were stable, the

socioeconomic situation of students varied from school to school. The Second Great

Migration of blacks from the South also shifted the regional demographics in segregated

black schools. While many black schools in the North and South alike acted as de facto

magnet schools, pulling their student bodies from all over their respective cities and

regions, the Great Migration expanded this representation with rural blacks from the

Deep South who settled into urban life looking for better opportunities than those

afforded in the Jim Crow South. This migration added particular strife to the

overcrowded conditions at many northern black high schools, and created tension as a

result of administrators’ perceived degradation of the standard of excellence their schools

had previously maintained.

The academic changes at the first municipal high school for blacks in the nation,

Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., and the treatment of recent

39 southern migrants is an example of how desegregation and migration were considered a compounded problem for urban black schools that previously thrived under segregation.

Desegregation did not change the racial demographic of Dunbar’s students, due in part to a D.C. Board of Education clause that stated students were prohibited from attending schools outside residential boundaries, but it did change the socioeconomic status of the students. The major economic demographic turnover in the student body at the school explains later claims that the new students seemed disconnected with Dunbar’s past and had little regard for school or its facilities. The principal of Dunbar at the time of desegregation, Charles Lofton, stated that the real reason behind the drop in the elite status of the school was the fact that the majority of the new students attending Dunbar were from “the deep South” and were “ill-prepared to keep up with local students.”9

Desegregation ended the era of Dunbar acting as “magnet” academic school for African

Americans, and it is not hard to find evidence of a class battle that ensued well into the

1970s.

Before the Brown v. the Board of Education case of 1954, Washington’s public school system operated like others across the nation, with separate facilities and resources for black and white students. Although integration of Washington’s public schools was proposed in a bill to Congress as early as 1870 by Senator Charles Sumner of

Massachusetts, the school system of the nation’s capital remained a segregated system until 1954. A companion case to Brown v. the Board of Education was the Bolling v.

Sharpe case, which dealt specifically with segregation in Washington as distinct from the states since the city was not subject to the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth

9 Jeanne Rogers, “Dunbar High Plays a New Role: It's Now a Neighborhood School,” Washington Post, January 23, 1957, A22. 40

Amendment that applied to states, but not districts. Segregation in Washington was ruled

unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment because of the due process clause, in which

the plaintiffs who attempted to attend John Philip Sousa Junior High as an integrated

school where discriminated against because of race, and therefore were denied their right

to due process. In fact, reformatting of the school systems was determined on a case to case basis after segregation was ruled unconstitutional in all the states and Washington.

In Washington, the Superintendent of Schools oversaw both the black and white school systems. The shared resources ended at the highest level of command. Black and white schools had their respective Associate Superintendents, both of whom were white.

These superintendents were responsible for curriculum planning and acting as statistician and head of the department of school attendance, business administration, building and grounds, and personnel management.10 The white and black school systems were

referred to as Division I and Division II, respectively, and shared no personnel resources,

including teachers or management boards. The Board of Examiners and all the teachers

in Division I were white; conversely, all teachers in Division II were black, as was its

Board of Examiners. White teachers were prohibited by law to teach at black schools,

even when there was a teacher shortage in the black school system and they volunteered

to do so.11

In the face of Bolling v. Sharpe, Washington’s Board of Education released a

statement explaining its stance and future actions in regards to integration. Fashioned to

look progressive with statements such as “Appointments, transfers, preferments,

10 Washington Board of Education, “Integration Problems/Historical Background,” n.d., Series 2: Speeches, Statements, and Remarks, 1961-1967, Box 1, Folder 45, Walter Tobriner Papers, Special Collections Research Center, The George Washington University. 11 Ibid., 5. While this particular resource does not say the converse for black teachers wanting to teach in white public schools, it is safe to conclude that this, too, was prohibited by law. 41

promotions, ratings or any other matters respecting the officers and employees of the

Board shall be predicated solely upon merit and not upon race or colors,” the Board of

Education managed to maintain status quo in other areas. For example, before re-

establishing school boundaries based on place of residence and proximity to schools, the

Board mandated “Attendance of pupils residing in school boundaries . . . shall not be

permitted at schools located beyond such boundaries, except for the most necessitous

reasons or for the public convenience, and in no event for reasons related to the racial

character of the school within the boundaries in which the pupil resides” [emphasis added].12 This stipulation meant that busing children to facilitate integration was not an

option and that school demographics would reflect residential demographics. Exceptions

were made, however, for students already attending schools outside their newly

designated school zones “in order to provide stability, continuity, and security in the

educational experiences” of those students during the transition.13 Since Washington was

segregated residentially in addition to socially and culturally, de facto segregation in the

public school system was perpetuated in areas that were heavily white or black in

population. This trend persisted over the decades, resulting in a virtually all black

Washington public school system in the postwar period as whites moved to the suburbs

of Maryland and Virginia in record numbers.

Because Dunbar High School was set within the nation’s capital, the D.C. Board

of Education viewed integration of this school and others in the city as a potentially

instructive example of successful integration for the rest of the nation. In an undated

12 Board of Education, “Bolling v. Sharpe,” n.d., Series 2: Speeches, Statements, and Remarks, 1961-1967, Box 1, Folder 33, Walter Tobriner Papers, Special Collections Research Center, The George Washington University. 13 “Text of Dr. Corning’s Proposal for the Desegregation of D.C. Schools,” Washington Post, May 26, 1954, 17. 42

speech on desegregation, Tobriner optimistically stated that there would be a “relative

ease of transition in Washington” due to a “fairly recent history of a progressive

crumbling of racial barriers;” pressure from the president, who wanted Washington to be

a model for integration that the rest of the country should follow, and the fact that

“Washington was governed by appointed rather than elective personnel who otherwise

would have tried to skirt around the issue.”14 The matter of Washington’s political

appointment procedures spoke to a clear paradox of the city’s government. Tobriner

maintained that local issues such as integration were treated with a fair hand because city

officials did not have to worry about upsetting or potentially losing their constituency,

highlighting the disenfranchised status of Washington residents.

Washington’s school system was under great pressure to integrate quickly, and so

students who had attended Dunbar before 1954 and were drawn there for its academic

rigor either stayed until graduation or were sent to schools elsewhere. These students

who attended before desegregation came from all over Washington, Maryland, and

Virginia. Since the late nineteenth century some families relocated to Washington from

as far away as Florida because of the reputation of the public schools, and particularly the

reputation of the then M Street School, the predecessor to Dunbar.15 The M Street

School was considered the leading national college preparatory school for African

American students even in the late nineteenth century.

In a 1976 letter to the D.C. Board of Education, Montague Cobb, Dunbar alumnus

and then president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

14 Washington Board of Education. Desegregation, n.d., 1-2, Series 2: Speeches, Statements, and Remarks, 1961-1967, Box 1, Folder 38, Walter Tobriner Papers, Special Collections Research Center, The George Washington University. 15 Tucker Carlson, “From Ivy League to NBA,” Policy Review 64 (Spring 1993): 36. 43

(NAACP), noted that in the first half of the twentieth century “the pupils of both Dunbar

and Armstrong [Manual Training High School] came from all over the city – northwest,

Georgetown, Foggy Bottom, northeast, far northeast, southwest, southeast, Anacostia and

Congress Heights.”16 The students who lived near Dunbar, a minority in the

representation of the school’s student body before integration, began attending Dunbar

after 1954 because of the newly established school boundaries based on residence. As

Thomas Sowell, a right-wing economist, whose work in the 1970s has been associated

with the new Black conservative movement noted:

“Neighborhood schools” was the rallying cry of whites resisting total desegregation; “integration” was the battle cry of black leaders… The school reorganization plan gave something to both sides – the measure of integration and the maintenance of neighborhood schools – and so was a political success. For Dunbar, however, it was an educational catastrophe.17

Sowell’s stance was indicative of the conservative voice of African American political

critics, yet it also holds a sentiment that is popular among critics of African American

education in the post desegregation era.

Residential patterns were the tell-tale signs of racial discrimination in most cities,

and desegregation did not change these patterns. Integration policies, when finally enforced, attempted to create smooth transitions between residential neighborhoods, and many people fought integration by moving out of the reach of school districts that were actively integrating their schools. This pattern was seen in Washington by residents moving into parts of northern Virginia and Maryland. By 1967, educational scholar A.

Harry Passow stated that “devices that might further desegregation in other cities are now

16 W. Montague Cobb to the President and Members of the D.C. Board of Education, 1 April 1976, 5, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C. 17 Thomas Sowell, “Black Excellence – The Case of Dunbar High School,” Metropolitan Washington Examiner, March 1975: 8, 10. Previously published in The Public Interest (Spring 1974): 1-21. 44

largely irrelevant in Washington,” referring to methods such as busing and freedom of

choice plans.18 The Washington public school system by that time was majority black.

Cities that were not as restricted for growth, as Washington was, attempted to

fight suburbanization and population loss by annexing parts of the surrounding counties

outside of previously established municipal city limits. These counties directly adjacent

to established yet aging cities were popular for middle-class white and black families that wanted to avoid the stigma of urban public schools. In Atlanta, for example, the city annexed major parts of the counties around it in order to keep a racial political balance in a city that had a large African American population. The spatial organization of Atlanta was particularly conducive to this type of growth, and consequently many parts of the city proper resembled suburban areas in terms of population density and styles of residences constructed. Although the urban fabric of Atlanta differed drastically from that of Philadelphia and Washington, there was no difference in the relative success of schools built for African American communities at the time in any of the cities because they all faced the same types of integration and funding problems. Despite their suburban-like locales, new school designs in Atlanta mimicked the fortified nature of their urban counterparts.

There were glimmers of positive racial change in the Atlanta public school system that would seem to be helpful in terms of desegregating the school system, but were not actually fulfilled. In 1953 Rufus E. Clement, president of Atlanta University, became the first African American elected to the school board, and he was reelected for three terms after that. Atlantans believed, however, that his presence on the school board would not

18 A. Harry Passow, “Toward Creating a Model Urban School System – A Study of Washington, D.C. Public Schools,” (study conducted by the Teachers College Columbia University, New York, 1967), 13. 45

prove enough to guarantee equilateral integration of the system. In 1958 legal suits were

brought up against the local authorities to hasten the speed of desegregation of the school

system. Pro-segregation politicians such as Senator Herman Talmadge pointed out that

federal law forcing integration opposed state law, and if federal decisions were handed

down to the state, local policy makers would activate state law to close all affected

schools.19

The Freedom of Choice plan adopted by the Atlanta school system in 1961 was

uneven in its favor of white students and parents who did not wish to desegregate, and

was more of a symbolic gesture than evidence of major structural changes in the public

school education system. This plan gave students who were a majority population in a

school the option to transfer to a school in which they would be a minority population.

Essentially, white students remained in majority white schools, exercising their right to

stay, while a small percentage of black students petitioned to transfer to majority white

schools. A few city boosters highlighted these changes as evidence that Atlanta truly was

the “Gate City” to the South, progressive and worthy of the mantle of “the city too busy

to hate.” “Desegregation came quietly to Atlanta,” claimed the Atlanta Daily World and

other local newspapers in 1961, when nine black students were transferred to four

majority white schools in the city.20 What the newspapers neglected to mention, however, was that the nine students were a small percentage of the 132 who had submitted applications in the spring of 1961.21 A spokesperson for the NAACP remarked

19 Margaret Shannon, “Suit Here Could Close Schools – Talmadge,” Atlanta Journal, May 30, 1959. 20 George B. Coleman, “Transition Comes Peacefully: Atlanta Desegregates Two Grades,” Atlanta Daily World, August 31, 1961. See also Douglas Kiker, “Kennedy Voices High Praise for School Transition Here,” Atlanta Journal, August 31, 1961. 21 See “123 Negro Students File Application to Transfer,” Macon Telegraph, May 16, 1961 and Gene Britton, “Atlanta Schools Get Application of 132 Negroes,” Macon News, May 16, 1961. 46

publicly: “We’ve got a saying around here that it’s easier to go to Yale than to transfer

from one public school to another in Atlanta.”22

School districts around the country attempted to alleviate the overcrowding of

black schools, under enrollment of white schools, and the loss of key tax paying

demographics to the suburbs after World War II with highly conceptual models for

schools. The advent of integration was so powerful that in addition to new transportation

and busing plans, school districts attempted to refigure the physical makeup of school

districts in a way that would capture optimum enrollment numbers for the distressed

areas. These concepts included the education park (or school park), community schools,

free schools, the think-belt school system, and the most widespread concept, the open

school (also known as the open-plan school). The open school concept proved to figure

greatly in the design of a number of the schools examined in this study. The other

concepts, while all receiving fleeting and varying amounts of success, never equaled the

open-plan school in widespread popularity as an international trend for school planning,

from primary to collegiate school design.

The education park was not a new concept when it gained popularity amongst

educational policy makers and administrators in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As early

as the turn of the twentieth century, Preston Search, Superintendent of Schools of Los

Angeles, proposed a “school park” for the city in 1894 that would act as a community

anchor (Figure 1). The idea behind the education park was that all levels of primary and

secondary education would be located centrally in an open campus-like setting, and that

resources such as school facilities, administrators, faculty, and supporting services

22 Research Atlanta, School Desegregation in Metro Atlanta, 1954-1973 (Atlanta: Research Atlanta, 1973), 4. 47

between the different levels of schools would be pooled for optimum cost-efficiency.

This model was compared to the functioning mechanisms of a small college campus.23

Edward A. Campbell, a consulting architect for the University of Chicago suggested a similarly situated conceptual complex designed as:

A focal point in the community, set amid spacious walks, gardens, fountains, and sculpture would be buildings that invite participation in education of many kinds. People of all ages might come here to study astronomy or zoology or sketching, to hear poetry or to make music, to learn dancing or chess. This could be a nucleus for the library, the museum, the concert hall, the little theatre, the art center, and the school (Figure 2).

In the era of slow integration for city schools, the education park and the “community school” concepts that catered to a larger population of students and monopolized the learning process were promoted as a means to facilitate integration.

In 1967 the Community Research and Development Corporation (CORDE) published a report entitled “The Education Park” that was a timely solution to the integration problem that Philadelphia was facing. The report was undertaken to determine the feasibility of the education park in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore; however, other cities such as East Orange, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh were also investigating school park applications in their respective locations.24 The CORDE report

also highlighted the beneficial aspects of the large size of the education park campus and

structure, quoting an educational consultant “who saw the park as giving schools a

‘dramatic new visibility’ in the community by taking smaller schools ‘out of the back

alleys of the city’ and placing them on prominent sites.”25 The report concluded that the

size and siting of the park would “engender feelings of school pride and importance” in

23 The Corde Corporation, “The Education Park,” Report to the School District of Philadelphia, January 1967, 0, Series 772-6, General Pamphlet Collection, Urban Archives, Temple University. 24 Ibid., Introduction. 25 Ibid., 8. 48

its community.26 Size was particularly important in this case because school administrators who promoted the education park concept as a means of integration believed that the larger school could be placed in residential areas that were bordered by black and white neighborhoods and capture students from both populations. Similar to the ideas of re-zoning and busing in school districts, this approach was based on the idea

that residential patterns of blacks and whites in the cities were stagnant.

In Philadelphia, shortly after the CORDE report was published, the school district

and educational activists rallied around the education park as a tactic applicable to the

school system. The Citizens Committee on Public Education in Philadelphia (CCPEP), a

community organization dedicated to promoting educational excellence in the city, even

developed an ad-hoc committee on the educational park, with hopes of showing how the

education park tied directly to the Community Renewal Program announced in the

mayor’s office in 1967. CCPEP stressed that the cooperation of the local, state, and

federal government with the Board of Education, “quasi-public agencies,” and private

capital mixed with private interests to create a comprehensive plan for the city was the

only way that the future of Philadelphia would be resolved in a positive way.27 CCPEP

recommended to the Board of Education that it should not only incorporate a system of

educational parks in the city in order to aid in integration, but that the Board should

simultaneously work on decentralizing the administrative authority in school system for

26 Ibid. 27 Ad-Hoc Committee on the Educational Park to the CCPEP Board of Directors Re: First Draft for Consideration for the Board of Directors Meeting on Monday Feb 13, 1967, Accession 602 Series 2: Organizations, Box 4, Citizens Committee on Public Education in Philadelphia Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 49

the city of Philadelphia.28 For this community organization, the education park concept

was a valid method for improving desegregation and equalizing the power structure and

resources in the school district across racial lines.

For Philadelphia, like many other cities at that time, the solutions to successful

desegregation were mainly built on schemas that were not always actualized.

Philadelphia had major construction projects in the school system in the era directly after

the World War II. Michael Clapper illustrated that neighborhood schools hardened the

line of inequality in the educational landscape of that city through school site selection.

After nine years without any construction of new city schools, the city constructed

schools in highly segregated or rapidly segregating neighborhoods between 1948 and

1960. 29 School construction was heavy in the northeastern part of the city which,

although lying within city limits, was seen as somewhat suburban because it was

developed in large part with semi-detached houses. This area was expanding as a new white enclave, with seven schools constructed during a six-year period. 30 On the other

hand, the city was building schools in predominately black neighborhoods on less than

optimal sites. Schools were constructed in the Black Bottom, West Philadelphia, and

lower North Philadelphia, which exacerbated the racial lines in the city (Figure 3). Even

as policy makers were espousing desegregation rhetoric with highly conceptual models

for integration, site selection for new schools in Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Washington

countered the process of integration.

28 Alan R. Howe, Statement on the Educational Park to the Philadelphia Board of Education, February 20, 1967, Accession 602 Series 2: Organizations, Box 4, Citizens Committee on Public Education in Philadelphia Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 29 Clapper, “The Constructed World of Postwar Philadelphia Area Schools,” 21. 30 Table 1, Ibid., 41. 50

Seven years after the CORDE report on the education park and CCPEP support of the use of the education park for desegregation of Philadelphia schools, the Philadelphia

Board of Education published the Desegregation Resource Handbook in 1974. The resource book was a complied all existing ideas for desegregation. The “Metropolitan

Plan,” for example, included education parks and complexes, but differed from previous proposals in that it included suburban areas as part of the plan (Figure 4). Re-zoning

school districts, restructuring the grade system, and the creation of magnet schools were

three other examples of the many proposed schema for the desegregation of Philadelphia

public schools. The construction of William Penn, University City, and Martin Luther

King, Jr. high schools in majority black neighborhoods before the release of the report,

however, proved that the plans were only paying lip service to the idea of successful

integration in city schools. The research and production of the book after the

construction of the schools is evidence that Philadelphia chose to forego a more

comprehensive plan of action that would have brought about real change in the school

district.

The Desegregation Resource Handbook included other ideas that were adopted

around the nation, such as the closing of black schools and consolidation of student

populations in white schools in the school districts. The resulting dislocation of the black

student body is particularly significant because of the implicit loss that black

communities across the nation faced when their schools were closed. These schools were

considered “small” and “inadequate” and found to deny “equal educational opportunity,”

so should these schools not meet “State or other accreditation standards,” it was

suggested that they be closed.31 While proposals such as these did not specifically

identify black schools for closure after integration, the message was implicit in the

wording. Instead of suggesting improvements for these schools, they were closed,

demolished, abandoned, or retrofitted for other purposes. The loss of these schools was

profound for their communities; in fact, it can be argued that the loss of black schools

accounted for a lowered sense of morale that would only be combated by the construction

of “Black Power” schools in the early 1970s.

The Sociological Impact of the “Urban Crisis” on Educational Policy

In addition to the slow rate of integration in the school systems, urban education

policy also faced new challenges in re-focusing curriculum, as well as pedagogical and socio-psychological goals. Disputes about the role of education in society erupted and continued post-Brown v. Board of Education. Policy makers wondered if education and

schools should serve as tools for integration, as community anchors to support declining

neighborhoods, as places to learn the three R’s, or as places to mold a young patriotic

citizenship. Many of these debates were not new; however, the historical milieu provided

a particular dilemma for city schools. Resistance to desegregation; suburban flight and

the resultant loss of tax base; urban civic unrest; the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and

the Black Power movements; calls for community control; and increased humanism

called for education to be responsive, inclusive, individualized, active, socially

responsible, and engaging. Parents and community activists demanded that school

administrators become a reflection of the students in terms of race, for the socio-

31 Philadelphia Board of Education, “Desegregation Resource Handbook,” November 1974, 17, Series 772- 10, General Pamphlet Collection, Urban Archives, Temple University. 52 psychological benefit of the students. Curriculum began to include African American themes and subject matter. Administrators experimented with grading systems that rejected traditional graded classes and promoted individual advancement.

It was becoming clear to education policy makers that the status quo was not effective for all students. A 1973 article published in the Journal of Negro Education argued against the idea of universal education based on mainstream values. While this article dealt specifically with the challenges of educating the “exceptional” or special needs child, it made clear that increased individual attention and relevant curriculum needed to be developed for urban public school systems to be effective.32 Additionally, the threat of desegregation left urban school systems in an isolated vacuum, which created a wild dash for monetary resources and program supplements in the form of compensatory education. Another change proposed for the school system was the expansion of career-related vocational education and the restructuring of educational policy, which included the possibility of dropping the age limit for compulsory education to 14, and other approaches to creating a more flexible and individualized program for urban youth in terms of their education. Vast and sweeping educational reform would come at the heels of the attempt by the federal government to create a desegregated school environment. The school systems in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington grappled with these issues and trends, going to great expense to physically respond to new attitudes about the role of schools, while making sweeping changes to the operational concerns and focus of their schools.

32 Joseph Clair, “Urban Education and the Exceptional Child: A Legal Analysis,” in “Education in the Black Cities,” Journal of Negro Education 42, no. 3 (Summer 1973): 351-359. 53

One of the major socio-psychological issues that school administrators were

attempting to combat was the effect of ghettoization on black American youth who lived

in increasingly insular, physically decrepit, and impoverished neighborhoods. These

were neighborhoods that had gone through generational turnover from ethnic European

enclaves to majority black and Latino populations such as those highlighted by urban

historian Thomas Sugrue in The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in

Postwar Detroit.33 These were neighborhoods with building stock that dated to the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but had received minimal maintenance over

time.

Noted education scholar A. Harry Passow identified these major issues facing

education in large urban centers in 1963.34 He stressed that ghettoization had drastically changed the educational landscape, and highlighted the intertwining characteristics of the urban problem on education:

Statistics do not depict the physical and economic deterioration of the central city gray areas, the movement of the middle-class to the suburbs, the transiency and instability of the in-migrant families, the concentration and intensification of social problems in depressed areas. City slums have existed for generations, even though their tenants have changed with each migration. Ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups have coalesced in areas of the city, creating de facto segregation in the schools even where laws imply non-segregation. School buildings in the depressed urban areas seem to house the greatest array of educational problems.35

This multitude of issues informed the environment that American youth faced on a daily

basis. The quotidien existence for these youth was seen by policy makers, educators, and

administrators as being directly tied to their success in school. The findings of the

33 Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 34 A. Harry Passow, Education in Depressed Areas, 1963, 1 as quoted in Passow, “Urban Education: The New Challenge,” Educational Researcher 6, no. 9 (October 1977): 5. 35 Ibid., 1. 54

Equality of Educational Opportunity Report of 1966 (also known as the Coleman Report)

added to the belief that environment, particularly socio-economic status, had a direct

collary to the success that children had in school. On the other hand, some educational

scholars found that class compounded by race were the real determinants in the success

of the education of a young student.36 Educator and social activist Iva E. Carruthers argued in 1977 that “what contemporary literature treats as the new urban educational

crisis is essentially the same old unresolved problem of Black status in the Republic.”37

Carruthers bemoaned educational mismanagement that stemmed from an underlying

basis of racism against blacks. For that reason, many education scholars, particularly

those in the black community, began to address the effects that ghettoization had on the

psyche of black youth, and how schools should respond to these conditions.

Education scholar David K. Cohen noted in 1969 that race was most pivotal force

in the shaping of urban education reform. He highlighted integration and compensatory

education as major policy issues upon which other questions and concerns in education

reform were built. For Cohen, compensatory education was a reflection of the idea that

education and schools themselves were conduits of social reform to counteract the

poverty-stricken environment from whence many urban school children came.38 This echoes many of the sentiments discussed earlier, where education policy leaders and scholars championed schools as a means of social mobility and social uplift. Cohen, however, was not convinced that policy based on the presupposition of education as a means of social mobility was valid. Cohen wondered whether this idea was a by-product

36 See Iva E. Carruthers, “Centennials of Black Miseducation: A Study of White Educational Management,” Journal of Negro Education 46, no. 3 (Summer 1977): 291-304. 37 Ibid., 303. 38 Cohen, “Education and Race,” 284-285. 55

of the Enlightenment, of middle-class views, or of “political affinities with socialism?”39

While Cohen himself did not specifically critique educational movements, his questions

reflected growing criticism of solutions that called for compensatory education as a

means of reform. These concerns would grow as conservative critics bemoaned the

expansion of federal government programs and funds that would directly address

problems in urban areas.

The increasing disparity in the urban social condition, the growth of federal programs, questions about the validity of integration and compensatory education, and other issues effecting urban education reform were compounded by the non- comprehensive work of the various tasks forces set up by local and federal government entities, non-profit research reports, sociologists and behavioral scientists. Many of these entities were dealing with case studies that could not be applied to other areas for lack of transferable conditions – they were too site specific and narrow. Thus, the onus of improving school conditions was a harsh tug of war between local, federal, and independent entities in a historical and social milieu of rapid upheaval and controversy on local, state, and international fronts.40 Carruthers argued in 1977 that no effective

collaborations could have worked because of incipient racism within the frame of

thinking about educating blacks in urban centers. This certainly was a factor in the

process, as well as the non-comprehensive manner in which the various bodies of

authority worked.

39 Ibid., 286. 40 Passow, “Urban Education: The New Challenge,” 5-10. 56

Federal Policies for Urban Education

Federal efforts to improve urban education resulted in legislative and monetary

outcomes that were applied on an individual case basis, and were tailored to the needs of

local communities without clear indication of measures for success and perpetuation.

Christopher T. Cross, historian of educational policy, characterized post-World War II

educational reform during the Eisenhower years as being “fraught with complications

regarding the baby boom generation and the need to expand classroom space.”41 Many

bills proposed for school construction were struck down because of the fear that schools

receiving federal aid would be pushed into centralized and federally mandated national

curricula. In the Kennedy era the focus was on math and sciences programs, but during

the Johnson era there was a sea change occurring in social and educational reform. By

the mid-1960s, major federal programs were created to give aid to urban areas that were

desperately competing with the attractiveness of suburban schools.

The programs developed under Lyndon B. Johnson from 1963 to 1969,

collectively referred to as the Great Society, worked to eradicate poverty, inequity, and

social injustice. These reforms included programs aimed at the healthcare system,

education, civil rights, transportation, and cultural organization. Although they increased

funding to city center initiatives and community action programs that coordinated federal

and local leadership, the multiplicity of the approach hindered successful collaboration

and guidance as the federal government bureaucracy expanded and lost its transparency.

One of the Great Society’s biggest legacies was the War on Poverty, with most of

its programs, including Head Start and Project Follow Through, administered through the

41 Christopher T. Cross, Political Education: National Policy Comes of Age (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004), 4. 57

Office of Economic Opportunity in conjunction with the Office of Education of the

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.42 Some of the major legislative acts

under the Johnson presidency that were intended to aid urban education included the

Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and the

Model Cities Program. While the scope of the Civil Rights Act was more broadly

focused on equalizing the rights of minority citizens and women, it re-affirmed the

federal government’s commitment to desegregation and the 1954 Brown vs. Board of

Education ruling. The Civil Rights Act remained a controversial piece in the history of

desegregation since many policymakers believed it would support busing of school

children in racially segregated neighborhoods, a move that was characterized as

unconstitutional by many opponents of the bill. While the bill did not specifically call for

busing, the threat of busing made the bill particularly unattractive.

Two years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equality of Educational

Opportunity Report of 1966, commonly referred to as the Coleman Report, was published

to measure the success of the improvement of educational opportunities. However, the

Coleman Report has been critiqued as type casting black student underachievement in

terms of social factors rather than resource allocation. James K. Kent, then a doctoral

student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, argued that the Coleman Report

redefined the way that educational equality was characterized and evaluated. Instead of

measuring good schools by quantifiable input such as resource allocation, student-to-

teacher ratio, school expenditures per student, laboratory facilities, the report findings

indicated that student achievement lay directly with the individual student and the school

42 The Department of Education was later established by the Department of Education Act of 1979 and the Department of Health Education and Welfare was dissolved and renamed the Department of Health and Human Services. 58

itself. This sentiment propagated the notion that student failure was not the fault of a

larger system of societal neglect, but a result of a lack of enterprising spirit within the

student.43

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) was created to

shape educational reform through a myriad of avenues that included increased funding

for schools with a concentration of low-income students and the creation of supplemental

educational programs. The legislation was also a reaction to earlier concerns about

federal funding and the threat of a national curriculum. It was clear in the legislation that

no federal curriculum should be enforced; rather that state and local governments should

have control over shaping the curricula for their schools. However, there were critiques

of the federal government distributing monetary allocations for specific purposes, rather

than assigning more block grants and general aid to federally funded schools. 44 These

concerns lasted years after the act was passed, even while curricula were undergoing

rapid changes to embrace culturally diverse and individualized programs.

The freedom for states to determine curriculum, however, was important for a

nation that was wary of too much authority sitting with a centralized federal government.

It is partially for this reason that Cross characterized the 1960s as the “Open Education

movement, with its emphasis on tearing down classroom walls,” a sentiment that was

supported by radicalism and backlash against the Vietnam War.45 Cross’ tone was

slightly sinister as he described the reform trends in which “a core curriculum was

abandoned and students were urged to enroll in whatever courses they wished to take,

43 James K. Kent, “The Coleman Report: Opening Pandora's Box,” Phi Delta Kappan 49, no. 5 (January 1968): 242. 44 Peter Milius, “$1 Billion Urged for Schools,” Washington Post, February 5, 1969, A1. 45 Cross, Political Education, 4. 59

whether or not they had any academic merit.”46 As will be discussed later, the revolution

of pedagogy and curriculum in the 1960s and 1970s was reflective of larger societal

changes that not only questioned the status quo, but expanded it so that notions of

academic merit had a more humanistic and individualized slant to combat issues of

failure within schools.

Federal involvement in the educational policy of Washington was more direct

than in other cities in the nation because the city was run by Congress, and received most

of its funds for public projects from congressional allocations. Therefore, just as in the

case of desegregation, federal officials hoped that Washington public school reform

would be a model for the rest of the nation. Between 1963 and 1972 Washington

implemented the Model School Division program, a collaborative project between the

non-profit advocacy organization Washington Action for Youth (WAY), and the Board

of Education. The Board of Education adopted the “Model Sub-system concept” from a

1964 report from the President’s Panel on Educational Research and Development

(PERD) entitled “Innovation and Experiment in Education,” and the United Planning

Organization (UPO) supplied the seed money for program implementation in

Washington.47 Additional funding for the program was channeled through Washington

local government and the President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency of the

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to the Board of Education.48 Thus, the

46 Ibid. 47 Larry Cuban, “Reforms in Washington: The Model School Division, 1963-1972. Final Report,” National Center for Educational Research and Development (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, 1972), 22. 48 District of Columbia Public Schools Model School Division, “Development: First Year Evaluation of the Model School Division, District of Columbia Public Schools, Washington, D.C., 1965-1966,” (Washington, D.C.: 1966), 2. 60

Model School Division was a combined effort in school reform and a local force of the

War on Poverty in Washington.

The first year evaluation report of the Model School Division reflected the notion

of cultural deprivation that many education scholars expressed in regards to the plight of

urban youth in target reform areas. The section of the public school system selected for

the Model School Division included the Cardozo neighborhood of Northwest

Washington, a move that was later criticized by educational historian Larry Cuban as

being highly political since the WAY’s director Jack Goldberg was a “close personal friend” of Cardozo High School principal Bennetta B. Washington. Cuban believed

Washington had important ties to the affluent class of blacks in the city, a factor that was

“not to be ignored” by Model School Division program implementers.49 The target area

was generally considered to have a cross section of “slum” and middle-class residences,

with a total of 24 schools to be included in the reform program – “5 pre-schools, 14

elementary schools, 3 junior high schools, 1 high school, and 1 vocational high school.”50

The early education programs used compensatory techniques as a means of

improving student success. Program elements ranged from new reading, organizational,

and curricular plans to employing the community school model for the neighborhood.

The goal of the program was to create the “greatest individual and collective student

achievement possible… [helping] students to understand themselves, to have mature

personal and social relationships in school, home, and community.”51 Clearly, in

49 Cuban, “Reforms in Washington,” 18. Bennetta Washington became the first lady of Washington in 1967, when her husband, Walter Washington, was appointed to the office of mayor-commissioner by Lyndon B. Johnson. Later in 1975 Walter Washington became the first elected mayor under Home Rule. 50 District of Columbia Public Schools Model School Division, “Development: First Year Evaluation of the Model School Division,” 2. 51 Ibid. 61 addition to the three R’s, the program was staunchly on the side of educational and sociological theories that schools should and could be incubators for responsible citizenship and community uplift.

Most of the early reviews of the Model School Division focused on its experimental nature, and the plethora of compensatory, collaborative, and community- focused programs that were executed as part of the school reform plan.52 What was missing in the literature, however, was how these programs were coordinated, who the specific administrators were, and what the long-term tactics were for sustaining and measuring the outcomes of the programs. Even though these factors were of considerable consequence in guaranteeing that the program worked past the initial stages of implementation, they often were neglected in reform policies across the nation on the local, state, and federal levels.

In the final report on the Model School Division, Larry Cuban identified some of the reasons for the failure of the program, which are reflective of earlier omissions in the literature. He reported that program administrators from the Board of Education, the

President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, the citizen’s advisory committee to the

Board of Education, WAY, and later, the UPO all participated in intense power struggles with local and federal aims continuously at a head.

Cuban also pointed to the Kennedy assassination in the formative stages of the

Model School Division as a clear indicator of how dependent the program was on federal involvement. Many issues and initiatives fell apart or were reorganized as the federal government and the nation worked to recover from the loss of a president. Additionally,

Cuban outlined the direct conflict that local leaders such as Washington school

52 See Gayle Tunnell, “Model Schools: Mixed Results,” Washington Post, December 2, 1970, B1. 62

Superintendent Carl Hansen had with federal administrative involvement with the

program: Hansen wanted federal funds but also wanted to maintain specific autonomy for

his project. This precarious situation, in addition to the UPO’s focus on the War on

Poverty, led to the withdrawal of federal UPO funds from the project. UPO officials

believed that the Model School Division was not adequately fighting poverty in its target

area, and the board of trustees for the UPO voted to end funding the program in 1967.53

Subsequent funding would come from the Ford Foundation and ESEA Title I allocations.

Cuban surmised that the major failings of the Model School Division included no

comprehensive planning, power struggles within the administration and between

organizations overseeing the project, no long-term modes of measuring effectiveness, and finally, no diffusion of lessons learned from the project throughout the rest of the school district.

The Nixon presidency from 1969 to 1974 was considered less minority or urban

poor friendly as the Johnson presidency, and Nixon came under fire by the press for not

being responsive or protective of the reform that happened before his presidency. A

Washington Post article from 1969 highlighted some of the concerns of Nixon’s task

force on education, stating that the president was “not regarded as a friend by most of the

Nation’s Negroes, nor as a particularly ‘education-minded President’ by the Nation as a

whole.”54 In fact, the task force rallied for Nixon to make drastic improvements to the

educational system in order to appease his dissenters in the educational and civil rights

realms. The task force suggested that the Office of Education be moved from the

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to be a separate entity, a change that

53 Cuban, “Reforms in Washington,” 54. 54 Milius, “$1 Billion Urged for Schools,”A1. 63 would not occur until ten years later. They also pushed for Nixon to assign a minority, particularly a black professional, to a high ranking post within the administration’s educational unit. These changes, and many others, were seen as key to Nixon developing a good rapport with educators and minorities alike.

Student-Centered Teaching and the Black Nationalist Approach to Pedagogy

In 1967, the British study Children and Their Primary Schools, commonly known as the Plowden Report, directly contrasted the findings of the Coleman Report. The

Plowden Report proved to be extremely influential in the shifts of progressive American educational policy in federal funding for social and educational welfare programs, student-centered curriculum, and the emergence of the open-plan school. The Central

Advisory Council for Education in England, chaired by educational reformer Lady

Bridget Plowden was appointed to the task of evaluating primary education in England by education minister Sir Edward Boyle in 1963. The report’s findings included the need for “positive discrimination” in national policy that favored resource allocation to some of the most deprived central city schools, increased parent participation in children’s learning processes, expanded community use of school facilities, and an approach to pedagogy, curriculum, and school design that was based on students’ individualized learning needs.55

The similarities between American federal policy in educational resource allocation under Johnson’s War on Poverty and the Plowden Report’s suggestions for a national policy in England are numerous and reflect the shared crises the nation’s faced in

55 See Howard Glennerster, “The Plowden Research,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 132, no. 2 (1969): 194-204 and Tessa Blackstone, “The Plowden Report,” British Journal of Sociology 18 (1967): 291-302. 64

equalizing educational standards to rectify the disparities between central city

neighborhoods and suburbs. However, the stark contrast between the tone and language

of the Coleman and Plowden reports about the potential for individual achievement

despite social and environmental hardships sharpened the debates in the public sphere

about the direction of educational policy in the late 1960s. The reports created the space for grandiose schemes to attack the multitude of problems and contradictions they exposed.56

Student-centered curricula came to fruition in the United States through a major

collaborative effort between local, state, and federal entities called “An Educational

System for the Seventies” (ES ’70). Both Atlanta and Philadelphia participated in the ES

’70 network of schools that were research and demonstration centers for larger implementation of similar programs nationwide. University City High School, a component of the West Philadelphia Corporation’s urban renewal project, was partially funded through ES ’70. University City, like the other 17 schools across the nation in the program, “emphasized flexible scheduling of classes and place[d] the primary responsibility for learning on the student.”57 This included non-graded courses and the

distribution of “learning packets” that were designed with the students’ specific learning

needs in mind, also taking into consideration the needs of students who would go into the

workforce after high school.58 ES ’70 programs also stressed the importance of optimizing on changes in technology to promote individualized learning such as

56 Joseph Alsop, “Matter of Fact: Coleman and Plowden,” Washington Post, January 23, 1967, A17. 57 “University City High to Open With 900 Pupils,” Evening Bulletin, December 1, 1971. 58 “University City High School To Offer Nongraded Course,” Evening Bulletin, January 28, 1969; E.F. Shelley and Company, “An Educational System for the Seventies. Revised Edition. Interim Report,” National Center for Educational Research and Development (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, 1968), 4. 65

incorporation of television into lesson plans. These considerations of educational

programming and pedagogy would come to inform the architectural planning of the

school itself and the new spatial order epitomized in the open-plan school.

The sociological and behavioral science approach to educational policy was very

much in tune to the needs of the local communities to raise the morale of urban youth who had no other options besides public education. These disciplines supported the idea that students needed to have teachers and administrators who were reflections of themselves in their local schools. Urban education and the students in city centers

needed a new focus, and that focus was one of identity politics and the power of self.

Educators and administrators in the United States began thinking about urban (often

synonymous with African American) education as a completely new concept. They

wanted to discover the specific nature of African American education and learning. They

tied the need to empower students against the threat of failure as laid out in the Coleman

Report, and as a response to the demands of the Civil Rights era identity politics.

The consideration of social and cultural differences in the urban student was also

a clear indication that student-centered curriculum as proposed in the Plowden Report

would be the way of the future for educational pedagogy. But how was this goal to be

achieved? Psychology professor Louis N. William, and Mohamed El-Khawas, professor

of history, would come to define black education as “inclusive and exclusive, in that it is

the whole integrated and systematic approach to a philosophy of education, to community

control of schools, to student-oriented instruction strategies, to the plea for using Black

education as a vehicle for humanitarian change, and for instilling self-esteem and racial

pride.”59 They argued for a holistic approach that was pan-Africanist, concerned with a

Third World ideology, and that would encourage the black student to be better equipped

as a scholar and as a contributing member of society at large.

William and El-Khawas also supported black teachers for black students in black

schools. In addition to calling for a more inclusive pedagogy that highlighted the black

contribution to world and American history, they believed the black teacher was more

empathetic to the needs and concerns of black students. In a sense, they wanted

education for black students to be an autonomous institution that taught, practiced, and

perpetuated a love of racial history, culture, pride, and unity, and reinforced an ethic of

leadership and moral responsibility.

There was also a very strong rise in Black Nationalist school themes during the

late 1960s and early 1970s. This turn to Black Nationalism is a reflection of a larger

national trend seen in the Civil Rights Movement after the assassination of Dr. Martin

Luther King, Jr. in April 1968. There was a shared sense amongst community and

political activists that the non-violent multiculturalist approach was too appeasing to the

status quo, and that a more militant Pan-Africanist sentiment was proper for the political

and social milieu. Black Nationalist themes soon became adopted for majority black

schools being built across the nation. Many schools even adopted as their school colors

the red, black, and green triad of the Black Liberation Movement.

H. D. Woodson High School in Washington was one such school that wholly embraced the black pride approach to school identity. Woodson’s school colors were

59 Footnote 1, Williams and El-Khawas, “A Philosophy of Black Education,” 179. 67

red, black, and green, and its school mascot was the African Warrior.60 The school itself

was named after Howard Dilworth Woodson (1876-1962), who served as a fervent

community activist and was one of the first black architectural engineers in the nation.61

Woodson moved to the far Northeast area of Washington in 1913, and subsequently

helped organize many of the community organizations there, including the Northeast

Boundary Civic Association, the Far Northeast Council, and the Far Northeast Business and Professional Association.62 Woodson’s dedication to the improvement of the area is

evident in his civic activism. He rallied for infrastructure improvements that included

“road widenings, bridge construction, construction of public schools, extending water and

sewer systems, paved and lit streets, and parks.”63

Woodson was also a trailblazer in his profession. Early in his career he worked as

one of the first African American professionals in the Office of the Supervising Architect,

an agency in the United States Treasury Department that was charged with designing

federal buildings. He also worked for Daniel H. Burnham when the firm began

construction for Union Station in Washington, and formed a partnership with architects

Roscoe I. Vaughn and George A. Ferguson that lasted from 1922 to 1950. Woodson’s

engineering work in Washington included churches, banks, and a row of houses built on

49th Place in Deanwood, just a few blocks from where the high school named in his honor

was built.64

60 Mike DeBonis, “End of an Error,” Washington City Paper, February 20, 2008 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34603/end-of-an-error (accessed January 26, 2011). 61 Martha M. Hamilton, “Boosterism Catching at H. D. Woodson,” Washington Post, May 5, 1975, A1. 62 Dreck Spurlock Wilson, African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary 1865-1945 (New York: Routledge, 2004), 460. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid., 459. 68

The Woodson example is important because the school name and themes fused a

local African American leader with larger Black Nationalist trends and sentiments.

However, the naming of black schools after significant black figures was not a new phenomenon. In the cities examined, many of the black schools were named after local leaders, including some of national prominence. These include several of Atlanta’s first schools for blacks: Booker T. Washington High School (1926), David T. Howard High

School (1945), Charles Lincoln Harper High School (1962), and Frederick Douglass

High School (1968). These names include local and national leaders who had contributed to the larger African American history and culture, and naming the schools after such leaders was seen as a form of empowerment in the local communities.

This naming trend was prominent in urban schools in Philadelphia and

Washington as well; however, while both of the high schools that were built between

1960 and 1980 in Washington were named after prominent black leaders, only one in

Philadelphia was – Martin Luther King High School. The other two majority black high schools in Philadelphia under construction during that time period were William Penn

High School and West Philadelphia University City High School. Granted both Dunbar in Washington and William Penn in Philadelphia were facilities built for schools that already existed, it does strike an interesting contrast in place naming. Martin Luther King

High School was originally to be named Northwest High School, but with the groundbreaking of the school in 1969 shortly after King’s death, it was renamed for its

1972 opening. Many of the primary schools in majority black neighborhoods of

Philadelphia followed the trend of being named in honor of prominent black leaders.

Frederick Douglass High School in Atlanta, which opened in 1968, was also

thematically rooted in traditions that emphasized black pride. The school was originally

to be named Vine City High School, but after the site for the school was shifted several

miles west of the Vine City neighborhood to the Collier Heights neighborhood the

tentative school name was no longer relevant. Named after the great abolitionist, the

school adopted themes germane to the personal and professional life of Douglass. The

school’s motto was Douglass’ famed proclamation “If there is no struggle, there is no

progress.” The school paper was The North Star, after the newspaper that Douglass

published. Another North Star was also significant to the African American community

since it guided slaves to freedom. The school yearbook was entitled Polaris, another

name for the North Star, and the mascot was the Astros, keeping with the celestial theme.

It is clear that Douglass High School took its namesake and the cultural and historical

significance of his work to heart when thinking about the inclusion of themes reflecting

not only school pride, but race pride.

Douglass High School was constructed in a majority black community during a time that was, according to the federal courts, a time of desegregation and equalizing of education. However, even as legal battles for integration were being won, there was a persistent reluctance on both sides, black and white, to what the true sense of integration meant. In 1968, the same year that Douglass opened, Frank Macchiarola, who would later be named chancellor of New York City schools, stated that:

In a very real sense, the concept of integrated education which the American society was willing to give the Negro meant no sense of positive racial image, no pride in blackness and no revival of the history and ego of the Negro. Thus, in education as well as in other areas of race relations, the militant black leadership, with some moderate support, has abandoned integrated education in favor of black schools in the ghetto. The improvement in their educational opportunities is

tied to community direction and participation, including education made relevant to the needs of the Negro, needs materially and spiritually defined.65

The combination of a changing pedagogy and culturally focused school themes in urban

centers reinforces the idea that some school administrators had come to terms with the

fact that by the late 1960s and early 1970s, integration was a long way from their reality.

Instead, they chose to emphasize cultural pride as a means of empowering students who

would attend majority black neighborhood schools in de facto segregated residential

areas.

The Fight for Community Control of Schools

The increased interest in developing a philosophy of black education that was

relevant to the urban youth, and the pride-building practices of developing Black

Nationalist rhetoric went hand in hand with the demand for increased community control

of schools. This movement was in direct contrast to the lukewarm attempts at integration

and busing strategies. One of the most prominent and outspoken advocates of this ideas

was Isaiah Robinson, who would become the first African American president of New

York City Board of Education. While attending a conference on Equal Educational

Opportunity Robinson argued that community activists should “get the money directly

from the state and city treasury, hire an administrator and say: ‘You hire people to do the

job. You’re responsible to us.’”66 This viewpoint echoed many others in isolated

communities who believed that federal, state, and local governmental agencies were

65 Frank J. Macchiarola, “The Social Impact of the Urban Riots,” in “Urban Riots: Violence and Social Change,” special issue, Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science 29, no. 1 (1968): 137. 66 Jean M. White, “And Education of Negro Children,” Washington Post, November 19, 1967, A2. This statement came four years before Robinson started his position as the president of the New York City Board of Education. 71

simply not responsive enough to their needs. With increased community control,

pedagogy and curriculum could be significantly altered to reflect the urban reality of the

youth who attended segregated schools. Vivian Mason, a Norfolk, Virginia, attendee to

the same conference, warned of the sense of “educational well-being” that parents in the

South were falling victim to when they received new air-conditioned schools in their neighborhoods from the city. She noted that while things on the exterior represented progress, the resources for the interior, such as science labs or good teachers, were often neglected. Mason’s fear that symbolic progress would be prevalent in the South was underscored by her idea that parents and the local community needed to be more involved internally and externally in the development of new schools for blacks.67

Educational reform that had a significant community control aspect was not a new

phenomenon in the United States. During the Progressive Era women who were gaining

new roles in public life outside the home became more involved in the welfare of public

education, seeing schools as extensions of the home environment. Education scholar

William T. Reese tied the creation of parental organizations that monitored and supported

schools with the devastating effects of the urban depression of 1893. Reese noted a

combination of factors in this increase in parental (mainly female) involvement in school

issues including the forces and reality of abject poverty in urban areas, a larger trend of

civic responsibility seen in the Progressive Era, and the broadening of the gender roles in

the turn of the century public sphere. Reese summarized the change effected by these

groups as such:

The activities of these coalitions of voluntary associations demonstrated that lay people could play a creative role in public education. By actively supporting innovative educational programs and social services in the schools, they helped

67 Ibid. 72

break down the isolation of institutions whose increasingly professionalized and centralized nature threatened to drive them far away from the life of the average citizen.68

These sentiments could be used to describe the increased community activism and

rallying for community control seen in urban areas of the United States in the 1960s and

1970s. While the crisis of urban poverty during this era was different from that preceding

the Progressive Era, the means of effecting change were significantly analogous. The

urban students in question were no longer immigrant students of the late nineteenth and

early twentieth century, but majority black and Latino students who were isolated just as

immigrant students were by systems of discrimination in city housing. The community

education reformers were no longer women who were expanding their gender roles as a

means of civic duty, but men and women who saw the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist

movements as a call to increased citizen participation and responsibility in their own

neighborhoods.

One of the most salient trends that effected urban policy in the late 1960s was the

viewpoint that schools were to act as control centers for the students who attended.

These students were sometimes depicted as dangerous juvenile delinquents to be feared

and controlled. As William and El-Khawas noted:

The schools of the nation that watched Watts, Newark, and Detroit burn have imperceptibly retrogressed without perceiving the true salient message of the flames as the cries of Black students. The emergence of new angry Black students have [sic] caused many schools to become open hostility camps and backgrounds for blatant revolt.69

This open hostility was oftentimes masked in the rhetoric of architectural innovation. It

is this hostility that is the basis for the choice of siting, materials, expression, program,

68 William J. Reese, “Between Home and School: Organized Parents, Clubwomen, and Urban Education in the Progressive Era,” School Review 87, no. 1 (November 1978): 3. 69 Williams and El-Khawas, “A Philosophy of Black Education,” 186. 73 and fenestration (or lack thereof) in the schools. It is this hostility, and to a certain degree, emerging fear of the students themselves, that created a whole range of buildings that have been described in contemporary times as resembling prisons in appearance and spatial organization.

The vast, convoluted federal policy programming that attempted to address the shortcomings of the urban educational system was a clear indication that the road to desegregation would be a difficult and uncertain one. Discussion of desegregation on the local level was more rhetoric than reality, and later federal legislation under the Great

Society dealt with funding programming in segregated school systems with less of an emphasis on desegregation. Compensatory programs and community control of schools in majority black neighborhoods reinforced a departure from integration approaches and the conscious incorporation of Black Pride ideology in the curriculum, programming, faculty selection, mottoes, mascots, and colors of urban schools. These schools were constructed in black neighborhoods and reflected the failure of integration during the urban crisis, the advent of re-establishing community control for neighborhood schools, and the new visibility of blackness in the physical manifestation of schools.

Chapter Two

Design: Fortresses of the Mind, Rather Than Penitentiaries of the Spirit

I love to stand before the school, And look up at the Tower, And count the floors from one to eight That represent our power… Howard D. Woodson High School Alma Mater

A 1963 editorial on urban schools in Architectural Forum praised the development of new schools that, unlike their predecessors, resembled “fortresses of the mind, rather than penitentiaries of the spirit.”1 The suggestion to the reader, whether architect, educator, administrator, or city official, was that the design of these new buildings must create grand, strong, and awe-inspiring environments for learning. The design should also be protective of each student without being oppressive and alienating.

These different aspects of a potential architectural dilemma were significant in major cities that were experiencing loss of residents to the suburbs, concurrent with the consolidation of racial and poverty-stricken communities. Schools needed to be monuments to education, while also functioning as an anchor in the community life of the neighborhoods in which they were located.

The opening stanza of Howard D. Woodson High School’s song represents that

ideal realized. The architecture of Woodson in its tower form successfully signified the individual and collective power of the students. Urban public high schools built between

1960 and 1980, including Woodson, attempted to respond to pedagogical evolutions and socio-political concerns of the highly segregated and troubled urban psyche.

1 “Meanwhile, an Encouraging Lift in the Design of Urban Schools,” Architectural Forum 119 (November 1963): 77. 75

Architectural design, similar to the education reform happening on a national level, was

promoted by planners, architects, city officials, and architectural critics as means of

eradicating many of the social ills that troubled increasingly poor, deteriorated, and

under-served communities with the advent of urban renewal. The creation of large civic

and public projects has been covered in numerous texts on this era. These texts focus on

large-scale downtown revitalization and public housing projects as idealistic on one hand,

and oppressive on the other.2 Rarely do they address the cultural significance of the design. Public schools are not mentioned for their design innovations during this time period; instead scholars focus on the process of de-segregation and white flight as a response to it.

This chapter focuses on the architecture and symbolism of high schools built in

Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington between 1960 and 1980 and their relationship to larger trends in institutional and civic architecture. The appeal of, and intent behind, the designs of these urban public schools have faded over time. These buildings did not adhere to the classicizing vocabularies of the early twentieth-century school building, which included motifs that embodied the democratic nature of compulsory education in the United States. However, these schools represented a combined interest in creating

2Howard Gillette Jr.’s Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995) covered the way that urban planning policies created at a federal level had direct social and cultural consequences in Washington that represented outright discrimination and a struggle for power in the nation’s capital. J. S. Fuerst’s When Public Housing Was Paradise: Building Community in Chicago (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003) focused on the community-building aspects of major public housing projects in Chicago, their intended transitional nature, and the way that segregation tactics were implemented in these residences. See also Martin Anderson, The Federal Bulldozer: A Critical Analysis of Urban Renewal, 1949-1962 (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1964); Alexander von Hoffman, “The End of the Dream: The Political Struggle of America's Public Housers,” Journal of Planning History 4 no. 3 (August 2005): 222-253; Francesca Russello Ammon, “Commemoration Amid Criticism: The Mixed Legacy of Urban Renewal in Southwest Washington, D.C.” Journal of Planning History 8, no. 3 (August 2009): 175-220; and Kevin Fox Gotham, “A City Without Slums: Urban Renewal, Public Housing, and Downtown Revitalization in Kansas City, Missouri,” in “City and Country: An Interdisciplinary Collection,” special issue, American Journal of Economics and Sociology 60, no. 1 (January 2001): 285-316. 76

strong cultural and symbolic statements through monumental posturing and optimum

interior flexibility. Cutting-edge architectural firms began working in settings that were

vastly different from many of the suburban ones to which they had grown accustomed in

the post-World War II era. These architects were collaborating with new clientele and

using experimentation to adjust to the different set of circumstances they faced in the

urban setting.

The school designs were powerful in their respective settings, reflecting historian

Michael Clapper assertion that “schools transcend their buildings, affecting

neighborhoods in invisible ways, from the messages communicated by the direction

children are walking to school to obviously manipulated catchment areas.”3 A 1964

publication on the relationship between school construction and urban renewal stated that

“among the generally small-scale structures in a residential area the schoolhouse can

become the ‘neighborhood capital’ – the significant architectural element [original emphasis].”4 The design of schools in urban settings is particularly reflective of

community values, and is a key to understanding the social, cultural, political, and

economic stakes tied to their design. The governing principles in the site selection,

flexibility, openness, and fortitude of these designs were not only intended to create

innovative centers of learning, they were consciously constructing a new definition of

monumentality that emphasized the visibility of an otherwise marginalized population.

In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre argued that space, whether a park,

civic complex, or school, should be regarded as a social product, the result of negotiated

3 Michael Clapper, “The Constructed World of Postwar Philadelphia Area Schools: Site Selection, Architecture, and the Landscape of Inequality,” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2008), 6. 4 Terry Ferrer, The Schools and Urban Renewal: A Case Study from New Haven (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratory, 1964), 2. 77

contestations of power.5 In that regard, the space in the community allocated to a local high school is a tool with which to examine the hopes of that community and the role of agency and socio-political struggles in the community. At the same time, the design of the school is a cultural product, reflecting the aesthetic, programmatic, and ideological concerns of a particular cultural community.

The architectural forms and function of post-World War II high schools were pioneering and evolved quickly in contrast to early- to mid-twentieth century design. In fact, educators, administrators, educational consultants, and architects clamored at the chance for experimentation. These buildings were radical in their departure from what architecture critic Wolf Van Eckardt dubbed traditional “egg-crate” schools. These early twentieth century buildings varied in outward architectural detailing but consisted mainly of double-loaded corridors resembling “egg-crates.” Urban crisis schools, in contrast, emphasized the learning and sociological processes of the individual student and embraced industrial materials such as steel, glass, and concrete to create more flexible plans and programmatic functions.6 These changes in materials and program were also

touted as being more economical than previous designs.

The acceptance of radical education reform and design in urban centers was a

response to the success of advances in the suburbs of major cities. Architectural historian

Amy Ogata has explored how postwar suburban elementary schools strove to provide

increased access to natural light and inner flexibility without completely embracing an

5 See Lefebvre’s essay “Social Space,” in Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Cambridge: MA: Blackwell, 1991), 68-168/ 6 See Wolf Von Eckardt, “No Eggcrate, This…” Washington Post, March 27, 1971, C1. 78 open plan.7 These buildings were reflective of larger trends within architectural design.

These developments were brain child of European émigrés whose design ethos included ahistoricism and a clear reliance on the properties of new materials to create pavilion styled buildings with large expanses of glass. The Crow Island School in Winnetka,

Illinois, built by Eliel and Eero Saarinen with Perkins, Wheeler and Will (1939-1940) was an early design constructed at the eve of World War II highly regarded at its time and later by architectural historians for setting the standard for schools constructed after the war.

Art historian Amy Weisser argued in her dissertation on schools constructed between the Depression and World War II that Richard Neutra and William Lescaze were breaking with traditional forms of elementary school architecture as early as the mid-

1930s.8 Many of these elementary schools had the advantage of being situated in a culture of progressive reform. School administrators and the larger community of middle- and upper middle-class citizens were able to dictate their thoughts about education in a suburban atmosphere.9 These elementary schools paved the way for similar changes in design for secondary schools in analogous demographic settings. One such example was Paul Rudolph’s Riverview High School in Sarasota, Florida,

(constructed in 1957, now demolished) that exploited the properties of design materials to create environments that embraced the natural light and climate of its settings.

7 Amy F. Ogata, “Building for Learning in Postwar American Elementary Schools,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67, no. 4 (December 2008): 562-591. 8 See Amy S. Weisser, “Institutional Revisions: Modernism and American Public Schools from the Depression through the Second World War,” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1995). 9 Ogata, “Building for Learning.” While Ogata’s study focuses on postwar elementary schools, these schools set the standard for secondary schools that would follow. 79

Architects were reacting to a number of social concerns in the postwar era; of

acute interest was the high increase in student enrollment. The national birth rate

increased exponentially in many communities as G. I.s returned from wartime service,

bought houses, and started families. The problem initially fell squarely on elementary

schools, as they felt the brunt of the impact of increases in student population before their

secondary school counterparts. Suburban areas undertook ambitious building programs

to respond to this need in the early 1950s, with major cities following suit a decade later.

The design of public high schools constructed during the urban crisis in major

cities also attempted to respond to the social concerns that reflected innovation in

materials as well as an acute understanding of the environment within which they were

built. These buildings are endangered testaments to the tenants of the late modern era of

architecture in the United States, and should be understood as monuments to an

optimistic time of cultural empowerment for the African American community. Public

high school design in urban areas reveals variables in class agency and federal policy, the

emergence of a monumental modernism that was concerned with the visibility of the

African American community in the public sphere, and security in the face of urban

unrest.

The urban crisis school building, in addition to being a source of revitalization,

served as a cultural marker and gave agency to a recently empowered community. The manner in which this agency was enacted varied within the class struggles of respective cities. The idea of strengthening and showcasing cultural identity through the creation of community anchor schools was seen in schools built during the height of the Black Power

Movement and in schools designed during major riot crises across the nation. Not only

did the design encapsulate a willingness to part with past aesthetic paradigms of school

architecture, but it represented a physical manifestation of black authority.

African American communities in which urban crisis schools were built also

exploited the site planning of the schools in acts of class agency. This was particularly

evident in the construction of Frederick Douglass High School in Atlanta, which was

originally sited to relieve issues of overcrowding in an area of the city designated a slum

by urban renewal authorities. Instead, the school was built in the middle-class black

enclave Collier Heights to relieve overcrowding at a neighborhood high school that had

opened only six years prior. Documenting the intentions of high school construction and

design expands dialogue about class struggles in the African American community

during the time of rapid suburbanization and highlights social-spatial relationships as

well. Urban geographers place site in the position of utmost importance in these battles,

since site specifications reflect patterns of development, residential segregation, urban

renewal plans, and the wholesale abandonment of efforts at integration by school boards

across the nation. Historian Michael Clapper has addressed this subject in Philadelphia,

showing how schools built during the era of desegregation actually promoted increased

segregation according to their siting in disparate de facto segregated neighborhoods of

Philadelphia.10

A major design dilemma that architects confronted during this time was the need

to design for security while concurrently planning for open spaces that denoted to students a level of comfort, sense of belonging, and individual freedom on the interior.

Urban crisis schools were envisioned as neighborhood centers, as the education park and community school concepts suggest. They were repurposed to serve the needs of

10 Michael Clapper, “The Constructed World of Postwar Philadelphia Area Schools.” 81

neighborhoods, some distressed, with supplemental social and educational welfare

programs funded by federal grants, and to provide recreational and cultural services as

well. Theoretically such buildings would be designed to evoke an inviting feeling,

responding to the context of the street and the human scale. Instead, since the

construction of the schools was a highly politicized and experimental process that

required federal, state, and local funds, they were designed as grandiose architectural

statements of progress. Progress was embodied in the monumental nature of the design

and, most importantly, in the proclamation of security afforded to students upon entering

the building from a streetscape of urban decline and unrest. Inside these fortifications

were fluid open space, circulation patterns that emphasized the connectivity of the whole,

and complexity of program designed to create wonder and respite from an outside world

of turmoil and uncertainty.

The intent in the design of these schools was different for various antagonists,

adding to the difficult contemporary discussion of their legacy. Community activists

were concerned with cultural empowerment, better education facilities, and making a

strong statement in their neighborhoods. Architects wanted to push the limits of

architectural dialogue, experiment with new materials and spatial organization, as well as spur urban renewal and revitalization efforts in cities. Architects and planners were working with the notion that they were on the front line in a battle zone for the soul of the city. A 1963 Architectural Forum article declared that “the war of architecture has hardly been won in our elder cities’ school districts, but only begun.”11 City officials

with a mind toward segregation exploited de facto housing patterns by building new

schools within established racially uniform neighborhoods. Policy-minded educators and

11 “Meanwhile, an Encouraging Lift in the Design of Urban Schools,” 77-78. 82

educational consultants were concerned with matching the physical space of schools to

the new ideas of team teaching and open plans. All of these concerns combined within a

growing fear of a post-riot urban setting that needed large-scale and fortified designs to

denote a “secured” environment.

The Tastemakers Architects disseminated ideas about proper school architecture and programming

through various channels including trade journals, books, and architecture magazines.

New jobs such as educational and architectural consultants emerged with the specific

goal of tackling innovation in the professional fields. One of the most well known firms

of educational consultants was Engelhardt, Engelhardt, and Leggett, based out of Purdy

Station, New York. They helped over 800 school boards with school construction, and

acted as consultants on jobs worldwide, from the Cairo American College to Louis

Kahn’s Exeter Library.12 Another group was the highly prolific Educational Facilities

Laboratories (EFL), an education and architectural think tank funded by the Ford

Foundation and founded in 1958. The EFL represented the “tastemakers” in regards to

school design for over 28 years, and the organization circulated over two million copies

of its publications during its years of activity.13 There were also university-based

organizations such as the School Planning Laboratory at the University of Tennessee,

Knoxville, which was associated with the university’s Department of Educational

12 A more detailed history of the firm can be found in “The Unknown Shaper,” Time, November 12, 1965. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,834586,00.html (accessed January 11, 2009). See also “Design of the Library,” Phillips Exeter Academy. http://www.exeter.edu/libraries/4513_4522.aspx (accessed January 11, 2009) and Tim Sullivan, “The Education of Americans in Egypt,” Cairo American College. http://www.cacegypt.org/about/pdf/Tim_Sullivan_History.pdf (accessed January 11, 2009). 13 Judy Marks, “The Educational Facilities Laboratories (EFL): A History” (National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, 2001), 1. http://www.edfacilities.org/pubs/efl2-3.html (accessed January 11, 2009). 83

Administration and Supervision. Finally there were multi-disciplinary non-profit organizations such as the Research and Design Institute based in Providence, Rhode

Island. These entities influenced the future of educational and institutional design by

working in collaboration with architects, planners, school administrators, parents, and

students.

The working relationship between these participants, however, ran the gamut of

stagnant to extremely successful depending on the situation. Funds, time constraints, and

priorities were often major issues that could potentially lengthen deliberations in the

design process. An article in American Schools and Universities, a publication targeted

to education administrators, discussed how educational consultants sometimes viewed

administrators as old-fashioned bureaucrats and how the consultant had the power to

create adverse effects by skewing administrators’ perception of architects. Educational

consultants were credited with valuing community input although some architects such as

Jordan Gruzen saw the potential to “create atrophy” from too much input.14 These

realities beg the question, then, to whom is the ultimate success or failure of the school

design attributed?

Various government, professional, and non-profit organizations that were not specifically created for the purpose of education consultation also participated in shaping

the evolution of the design process. The American Institute of Architects, the National

Education Association, UNESCO, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and

Welfare, the American Society of Landscape Architects, as well as the American

Conservation Association were all organizations that contributed to the discourse on the

14 “How to Help – and Hinder – Your Architect,” American Schools and University 43, no. 7 (March 1971): 19. 84

creation of public schools between 1960 and 1980. Many of these organizations

published and circulated case studies and articles to enrich the knowledge about school

design from their particular points of view and areas of expertise. Topics ranged from school site selection, school renewal, school maintenance, and school design.

In addition to educational consultants and non-profits, major architectural firms specializing in school design emerged as the voice and example of innovation, and many of these firms worked in conjunction with the EFL. Prominent firms included Perkins &

Will, darling of major architectural magazines such as Progressive Architecture and

Architectural Record. William W. Caudill of the CRS Group was another architect who

published many treatises on proper designs for education. These firms specialized in

educational, institutional, and civic buildings, creating portfolios that would speak to their

credentials in the area. They were guiding the direction of educational architecture for

their time, but they were not the only influences in the field.

The firms considered in this study had varying degrees of expertise in educational

architecture. Two of the firms that built high schools in this study were notable for their

extensive educational and institutional work: Toombs, Amisano, & Wells in Atlanta and

McLeod, Ferrara, & Ensign in Washington. Despite their work on urban crisis schools

in center city locations, their most critically acclaimed designs for schools were generally

located in low-density suburban environments. Other firms, such as H2L2 and

Mitchell/Giurgola in Philadelphia and Aeck Associates in Atlanta were known for large- scale innovative civic and commercial work in center city projects. Only two of the firms in this study were led by African American architects, Bryant & Bryant and Sulton-

Campbell of Washington. Their portfolios consisted mainly of small-scale community

centered projects such as churches, although they did have previous experience in federal

work.

McLeod, Ferrara, & Ensign, the firm that designed the high-rise Howard D.

Woodson High School in Washington had extensive experience designing educational

facilities in the metropolitan area, many of which were featured in national architectural

journals in the 1950s.15 The firm received national press at the same time it was

contributing to the dialogue on architectural theory in educational design. The firm

prepared reports in collaboration with EFL on design approaches to the construction of

school gymnasiums and a study on urban schools in Europe.16 The selection of the firm showed a commitment on behalf of the Washington Board of Education to a pioneering design program for its newest, most ambitious and expensive urban public school.

The vast majority of the work done by the firm was suburban, reflective of the

grounds for experimentation taking place in school design nationally. Suburban districts

were setting the standard that urban schools would try to emulate by adapting a mold for

suburbia in an urban context. In Urban Schools in Europe: A Study Tour of Five Cities

(1968) members of the McLeod, Ferrara, & Ensign partnership confirmed this trend by stating that it was part of their impetus for studying urban schools in Western Europe.17

15 George Mason Junior-Senior High School in Falls Church, Virginia, Hillandale Elementary School and West Bethesda High School in Montgomery County, Maryland, as well as Salem Avenue Elementary School, North Hagerstown High School, and Boonsboro High School, all located in Hagerstown, Maryland. See “Schools,” Architectural Record 112 (November 1952): 119-150; “Schools,” Architectural Record 114 (September 1953): 172-201; “West Bethesda High School, Montgomery County, Maryland,” Architectural Record (October 1961): 159-161; “School Buildings,” Architectural Record 116 (November 1954): 177-216; “Schools,” Architectural Record 120 (July 1956): 149-179; and “Schools,” Architectural Record 12 (August 1960): 179-202. 16 See McLeod & Ferrara Architects, “Conventional Gymnasium vs. Geodesic Field House. A Comparative Study of High School Physical Education and Assembly Facilities,” (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, 1961). 17 John W. McLeod and Richard J. Passatino, Urban Schools in Europe: A Study Tour of Five Cities (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, 1968), 10. 86

Urban Schools in Europe was published in the middle of the design of Woodson,

and the impact that the research in Europe had on the firm was evident in the massing and

articulation of the school (Figure 5). The five cities studied were London, Zurich,

Hamburg, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. The purpose of the study was to use European

cities that had suffered “urban blight” to inspire new designs for urban centers in the

United States. Authors McLeod and Passatino targeted dense urban areas of the

respective cities while researching the question of the “urban problem.” The architects

discovered that issues facing schools in Europe were similar to those in the United States,

and that the differences “were only a matter of degree rather than of kind.”18 To that end,

considerations such as siting, planning for new a curriculum, high-rise schools, bomb shelters, construction materials, and aesthetics were important to McLeod and Passatino while conducting intensive research for the book.

The Washington architecture firm in charge of the Paul Laurence Dunbar High

School design, Bryant & Bryant, is unique amongst all the case study firms in this

research, besides Sulton-Campbell, because it was headed by the team of African

American brothers – Charles Irving and Robert Edward Bryant. The brothers were

graduates of Howard University’s School of Architecture and members of the second

generation of successful African American architecture firms in Washington.19 The

Bryant brothers’ training at Howard was very much in line with the mainstream academia and pedagogy of other architecture programs at majority white institutions, particularly those in the northeast. The work of Paul Rudolph, dean of the Yale School of

18 Ibid. 19 Melvin L. Mitchell, The Crisis of the African American Architect: Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and (Black) Power (New York: Writers Advantage iUniverse, 2003), 131. 87

Architecture from 1958 to 1965, was seen as one of the most influential sources of

inspiration for the young architecture students at Howard at that time.20

Many African American architects in the nation’s capital found work as project

architects in the federal government. Charles Bryant was no exception. He was

previously employed as a staff architect for the General Services Administration’s Office

of Space Management and worked for the Veteran’s Administration before establishing

his firm in 1965. Fellow African American architect Melvin Mitchell characterized the

Bryant & Bryant firm as “the first really significant black-owned practice east of Paul R.

William’s firm in California.”21

The selection of Bryant & Bryant as the firm for this extremely ambitious project

was, as both Mitchell and historian Harrison Etheridge noted, a reflection of the post-riot

explosion of a Black Power sentiment amongst African American architects, engineers,

and planners. Most of their previous commissions were for African American cultural, religious, civic, and commercial institutions such as banks, churches, and social

organization headquarters. Many of the larger projects in the Washington area, including

those of public school construction, were given to white architectural firms. Black

architects in the post-riot era in Washington sought out large-scale, multi-faceted projects, and clamored for increased involvement with urban renewal plans, which had been deemed “Negro Removal” plans that were antagonistic towards black inner city residents.

20 Ibid., 105. 21 Ibid., 125. Harrison Etheridge, “The Black Architects of Washington, 1900-Present” (PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 1979), 106. A rare article that profiles Bryant & Bryant is “With the City Foremost in Mind,” AIA Journal 58 no. 3 (September 1972), 27-34. 88

Philadelphia school superintendent Mark Shedd was reacting to the drastic needs of the city when H2L2 was chosen for the design of University City High School, the first new school in the city for over nine years. Architectural historian George E. Thomas

characterized Superintendent Shedd as the reform-minded school official who wanted to

move away from the architectural trends of the 1950s to “make education exciting by

using significant modern architects to design buildings that would represent the elevated

aspirations of the district.”22 Thomas cited the design of University City as well as

Mitchell/Giurgola’s William Penn High School as key indicators of the school district’s commitment to the community, and to an era of much needed change. H2L2 was founded in 1907 by Paul Philippe Cret, and after Cret’s 1945 death his partners Harbeson,

Hough, Livingston, and Larson continued the practice under their names, and officially adopted the title H2L2 in 1976.

The Atlanta firms for Charles H. Harper and Frederick Douglass high schools,

Toombs, Amisano, &Wells and Aeck Associates, respectively, already had numerous

significant institutional and commercial commissions in Atlanta. Toombs, Amisano, &

Wells had made a name for itself as a leading progressive firm in Atlanta with projects

such as the Lenox Square Mall (1957), which received an American Institute of

Architects (AIA) Merit Award and served as the first regional mall in Georgia. Aeck

Associates’ portfolio included a project on the campus of the Georgia Institute of

Technology, the much lauded Lovett School design, and the Atlanta Towers apartments.

Richard Aeck’s work had been described as situated “in the pendulum swing between the

traditional building arts (whose basis for beauty is ornamented form) and modern

22 George E. Thomas, “From Our House to the ‘Big House:’ Architectural Design as Visible Metaphor in the School Buildings of Philadelphia,” Journal of Planning History 5, no. 3 (August 2006): 232. 89

construction (concerned with function and economy of line and finding beauty in

efficiency).”23

The Politics of Site Selection

Site selection for urban crisis schools was one of the most politically charged

factors in their design, particularly since school sites were used as tools for politicians on

both sides of the desegregation battle. The Philadelphia School Board, for instance,

discussed selecting sites for new schools on the edge of black and white neighborhoods

as a tool for integration, particularly for use in the hypothetical education park plans.

This solution was rarely, if ever, pursued. Instead, as historian Michael Clapper

illustrated, site selections for schools built after the World War II were often used to

reinforce segregation in the Philadelphia public school district.24 Majority black

communities did not always respond to this practice the same way. Some neighborhoods

welcomed new facilities regardless of their segregated status, others rallied against what

they saw as continued compliance by their local governments to solidify segregation in

their city schools.25

In Atlanta the sites of two new high schools reflected class divisions in the

African American community and the ongoing practice of reinforcing segregation in

public schools. Charles Lincoln Harper High School (1961-1962) was built to

accommodate a rapidly westward expanding African American middle-class community.

23 “Richard Aeck (1912-1996),” New Georgia Encyclopedia. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-697 (accessed January 29, 2009). 24 See Clapper, “The Constructed World of Postwar Philadelphia Area Schools.” 25 The Philadelphia neighborhood response to these school proposals that would compound school segregation is highlighted in Evening Bulletin articles such as “Group Renews School Protest in West Phila.”Evening Bulletin, September 23, 1966, B31 and “Board Drops 46th and Market As School Site,” Evening Bulletin, April 8, 1965, F3. 90

Its design was reminiscent of the pavilion inspired schools created in the 1940s and

1950s, and its innovative concrete-frame construction was celebrated in national architecture journals (Figure 6). The more fortified Frederick Douglass High School

(1965-1968) was constructed to relieve the overcrowded conditions already present at

Harper High School, as well as Harry McNeal Turner High School, and Booker T.

Washington High School (Figure 7). Both Harper and Douglass were built in neighborhoods that were solidly African American, to relieve overcrowding issues at existing African American facilities.

These schools not only represented the creative evolution of architectural thought of their time, but they also signified social and political struggles in their communities.

In Atlanta the siting of Charles Lincoln Harper High School was an act of middle-class agency to provide educational facilities to a black enclave that self-segregated according to class status. Like schools of the previous decade, the construction of Harper was reacting to major population shifts that included increased enrollments due to baby boomer generation and mass migrations into suburbs. Harper High School was built to accommodate the burgeoning African American middle-class neighborhood of Collier

Heights in northwest Atlanta. The school acted as a buffer between a group of African

American Atlantans who wanted to establish their autonomy, and the more traditional mixed-class African American communities that were served by Booker T. Washington and David T. Howard high schools. Collier Heights was a community planned by and for

African Americans, consisting mainly of brick ranch houses that epitomized the middle- class ideal. Harper’s future student body was reflective of pre-existing class-based residential patterns as students were transferred mainly from Harry McNeal Turner High

School, also in the northwestern part of the city. To a much lesser degree other students

came from Booker T. Washington, Samuel Howard Archer, David T. Howard, and

Luther J. Price high schools. The student body population of Harper was mainly

populated by middle-class African Americans whose families were able to move from

central city enclaves that had previously been restricted by segregated residential

patterns. The northwest section of Atlanta and the schools built there were envisioned

and planned as a black suburb within city limits.

In May 1960 the Atlanta Board of Education voted on the original school site for

Harper (referred to as Westside High) on Alvin Drive. The location changed the next

month to a site four miles southwest at the intersection of Fairburn and Collier roads.

The move placed Harper at a distance twice as far from Washington High as originally

planned, and the original Alvin Drive site was held over for an elementary school at the

request of board member Harold P. Jackson, chairman of the Building and Grounds

Committee.26 Despite being an example of middle-class agency through site selection,

the location of Harper became particularly problematic by the late 1960s with the

expansion of the Atlanta highway system. The school found itself literally crossed out of

Atlanta proper as it sat at the crux of I-20 and I-285 intersection and relegated to the outer

perimeter.27

The vast majority of African American high schools at that time were

overcrowded and in need of relief with the transfer of pupils to a new school. Vine City

26 Joel W. Smith, “Board To Name New High School For Prof. Harper,” Atlanta Daily World, June 14, 1960, 1. 27 The use of highways as a method of disenfranchisement and growth control of African American and other ethnic neighborhoods has been covered in numerous texts on the relationship of highways to urban planning. Two useful texts on this phenomenon include Eric Avila’s Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), and Robert O. Self’s American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). 92

High School was proposed to relieve the conditions at Booker T. Washington High

School (Figure 8). When the selected site bounded by Vine, Magnolia, Spencer, and

Maple streets proved too expensive for purchase by the Atlanta School Board, other sites

were considered, and a plot of land four miles west at the intersection of Simpson and

Hightower roads was chosen.28 This move put the proposed high school a mere two

miles east of Harper, and when the school was dedicated the name was changed to

Frederick Douglass High since the school no longer served the Vine City area. The Vine

City neighborhood was a prototypical older racially segregated neighborhood that was

targeted by Atlanta city planners for urban renewal, and became the location of the city’s

largest public housing project, Perry Homes, in the early 1950s. The neighborhood

would later come to be negatively characterized by some critics as “an old and well-

known black slum 54 blocks square.”29

In an October 1965 school board meeting Reverend J. A. Wilborn and Dr. Rufus

E. Clement introduced the idea that overcrowding at Harper High was an issue in need of

immediate attention. Clement called the Collier Heights neighborhood “one of the

fastest, if not the fastest, growing communities in the City [emphasis added].” It was

suggested that the need at Harper High was so great as to require an addition to the

existing school as well as the creation of a new high school.30 However, the change in

the location of the Douglass site left the Vine City neighborhood without a new high

school, which was desperately needed for the children and the morale of the neighborhood. One Vine City community leader claimed that neighborhood schools had

28 “Board Considers New Site For Vine City High School,” Atlanta Daily World, June 11, 1964, 1. Hightower Road is now known as Hamilton E. Holmes Drive. 29 Arliss L. Roaden, “Citizen Participation in School Affairs in Two Southern Cities,” in “What Do All Those People Want?” special issue, Theory into Practice 8, no. 4 (October 1969): 256. 30 Minutes of Regular Meeting of the Atlanta Board of Education, October 11, 1965: 2, 5. 93

“always been a ‘foreign land,’ where attention was given to middle and upper class

Negroes, but not poor children from Vine City.”31 This sentiment was compounded by

the loss of Vine City High School to the Collier Heights neighborhood, a move that

reinforced the idea that the more affluent African American neighborhoods in northwest

Atlanta were being catered to by the public school system, while less affluent

neighborhoods like Vine City were overlooked and left with unmet needs.

Howard D. Woodson High School (1966-1972) in Washington was built almost

concurrently with Douglass, and like the Atlanta schools, it was built in a predominately

black neighborhood, belying any effort on the part of the school district to use school site

as a means of integration.32 The neighborhoods of the schools were drastically different;

Douglass High was situated in a comfortably growing African American enclave of

middle-class residents while Woodson High was located in the far northeast working-

class neighborhood of Deanwood. These facilities were designed as schools for blacks in

an era of purported school integration. Regardless of the class differences in the Atlanta

and Washington neighborhoods, similarities between the schools included their central

siting in black neighborhoods, the resounding fortitude of design, as well as an adopted

Afrocentric theme for school colors, mascots, and mottoes.

Woodson High School was the first high school built in Ward 7, and its proposed

location was a low elevation site constrained by the proximity of railroad tracks and high

voltage power lines.33 The history of blacks being given the most undesirable lands to

dwell in – flood plains, lands known as the “bottom” – could have played a role in

31 Roaden, “Citizen Participation in School Affairs, 256. 32 Although the school design and construction of Woodson and Douglass started the same year, Woodson opened four years after Douglass due to a lack of funding. 33 Gerald Grant, “Eight-Story High School Slated in NE Washington,” Washington Post, November 20, 1965, A4. 94

neighborhood opposition to the site. Numerous high schools in Washington were located

in highly prominent and visible sites, and many were situated on hills, overlooking their

respective areas of the city. Woodson’s design, however, would make up for the low

visibility of the site. Woodson was designed as the city’s first “high-rise” high school,

eight stories tall with two main masses. These included a two-story base platform that housed the library, cafeteria, auditorium, gymnasium, swimming pool, and other facilities, and an eight-story tower that housed academic functions (Figure 9).

Woodson was highlighted in a 1973 joint publication of the American Society of

Landscape Architects Foundation, the Educational Facilities Laboratories, and the

American Conservation Association on site development issues for urban schools because of the school board selection of its difficult site. It was praised as a model high- rise for urban school districts, and for exhibiting an optimal efficiency of spatial organization. Other school designs cited as prototypes of the high-rise school were located in Chicago, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, areas that were much denser than their

Washington counterpart.34 The significance of the high-rise design was also outstanding because of citywide height restrictions and the neighborhood’s composition of mainly one- to two-story residences (Figure 10). Charles Atherton, secretary for the Commission of Fine Arts, stated that the school would be a “good symbol and an excellent landmark” in its neighborhood.35 Woodson was built as a monument for the community and the city

at large (Figure 11).

34 The American Society of Landscape Architects Foundation, Site Development Goals for City Schools (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, 1973), 29. 35 Grant, “Eight-Story High School Slated in NE Washington,” A4. 95

Program, Economy, and the “Flexible” High School

In the early postwar years cutting-edge suburban schools were conceived as

campuses with varied functions housed in different buildings. This physical

decentralization of space accommodated programmatic diversity, and these distinctions

were expressed on the exterior of the buildings through choice of material, massing, and

form. Many suburban school designs in the early 1960s were lauded for their

decentralized organization that emphasized a separation of function for different activities

occurring in the school (Figure 12). Decentralized organization was the by-product of the

“sub-school” model, one that favored a more intimate collection of students in smaller

numbers to increase a feeling of belonging, comfort, and individualized modes of

instruction (Figure 13). Interchangeable terms for this approach to spatial and

programmatic organization include the “house” and “little school” concepts. These ideas

are reflective of the re-domestication of the school form.36 Additionally, construction

that increased flexibility while remaining economically viable was of utmost importance

in the postwar boom. The use of partitioned walls and new modes of furnishing that were

adaptable to create varied learning environments demonstrated flexibility in school construction. Designs with non-load bearing walls were promoted to let schools expand laterally if needed (Figure 14).

By the early 1960s architects were experimenting with circular, hexagonal,

pentagonal, and octagonal spaces, many of which could be converted and combined to

create one large uninterrupted space. The shape and spatial organization of flexible

schools began to shift to an increasingly centralized plant and program that differed from

36 See “Three Prototypes in One School,” Architectural Forum 113 (July 1960): 120-23; “The Main Shapes Arise…” Progressive Architecture (July 1961): 146-153; and “Schools Within Schools,” Progressive Architecture 43 (June 1962): 118-131. 96

their early postwar counterparts of the 1940s and 1950s. The EFL promoted many of

these innovative plans and changes in teaching strategies by publishing and distributing

studies for educational administrators and architecture firms. Historian Amy Ogata

suggested that techniques such as team teaching, a method supported by the new spatial

organization in schools, made the process of teaching more economical in the face of

teacher shortages and increased enrollments.37 This sentiment would be continuously

highlighted throughout the 1960s and reemphasized with the publication of the Plowden

Report in 1967.

Edward A. Campbell, a consulting architect for the University of Chicago, stated

in 1960 that flexibility was the term du jour for educators and designers. While he

championed various approaches to creating flexible educational facilities, he issued a

heavy warning that:

Accepted without qualification, the demand for flexibility could result in a negative architecture; instead of a building there would be a machine for space completely convertible, universally adaptable, entirely uncommitted. And in such irresolution both the educator and the architect would stand to lose vital adjuncts to their work.38

This anxiety about “uncommitted” architecture was not a popular one, and Campbell

himself was quite optimistic about the advantages of individualized space within a

flexible environment. However, this sentiments expressed in this fear would transform

into a major critique of open-plan school designs.

37 One example in Long Island, New York is the plan of John F. Kennedy High School (now Plainview Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School), proposed by the architectural firm of Eggers and Higgins in a “V-quad arrangement” with removable partition walls. The school plan was lauded for efficient use of space in Robert H. Terte’s article “Plainview School To Fit New Plan,” New York Times, December 8, 1964, 52. 38 Edward A. Campbell, “New Spaces and Places for Learning,” School Review 68, no. 3 (Autumn 1960): 347-348. 97

The Harper High School plan was one that valued economy of space, although it

was not particularly groundbreaking in plan. The school boasted double-loaded corridors with classrooms situated on the periphery, multi-use rooms on the interior, and a

“demonstration” area that acted as a gathering space just beyond the entrance (Figure 15).

In fact, there was no immediate pronouncement of flexibility in any of the publications

about the building. The school’s inclusion of a cafeteria and library in the same building

was more impressive to the students and administrators than its plan, and the Atlanta

Board of Education boasted that it was the first “fully equipped” school in city.39 The concept behind the school design, according to the Board of Education, was to create a

“precisely controlled environment in a more functional building” through the use of a

“compact plan.”40 While the Board of Education took pride in the compact plan of the school, it was this very characteristic that led to overcrowding. A mere two years after its

January 1963 debut welcoming 900 students to its halls, the school was in the need of

additional classrooms to accommodate its growing student body.

Harper High’s distinctive design and efficient use of space that created lower

maintenance and operating costs were the main selling points of the school. But the

focus on the compact plan and the highly geometric organization of space revealed what

would become a problem for many of the high schools in this study – the “crutch of

structure.” In a 1954 lecture to architecture students at Harvard University, Philip

Johnson described this crutch as “a very dangerous thing to cling to. You can be led to believe that clear structure clearly expressed will end up being architecture by itself.”41

The low horizontal profile of Harper and its clearly articulated structure was extremely

39 Atlanta Board of Education, Progress Toward a Better Environment for Learning (1962), 5. 40 Ibid., 3. 41 Philip Johnson, “The Seven Crutches of Modern Architecture,” Perspecta 3 (1955): 43. 98

impressive for its time; however, it was the rigid nature of the design that led to the

construction of another high school in the area shortly after Harper opened.

While Harper and Douglass could not have been more different in scale and form, the interior plans were quite similar. In both cases the classrooms lined double-loaded corridors, with multi-purpose rooms located towards the interior of the building. The architects at Douglass placed supporting structural components such as stairs, utilities, and lockers on the periphery of the building, creating “maximum convertibility in [the] center portion of the building (Figures 16-17).”42 Here again the idea of flexibility

played a role in the rhetoric of school design, although mainly in theory. In order to

“create an open world within the school” glass paneling was utilized on the interior of the

building so students could feel connected to each other.43 Although this technique

increased visible interactions, it was still a world away from the intensity of exchange

that occurred in open-plan schools. The Douglass design was a decentralized plan with

the separation of the gymnasium and auditorium from the main building reflecting

differences in activities and structural systems.

Despite its construction as a high-rise high school, Woodson’s design exemplified

some of the major trends seen in suburban plans and in the design of Harper and

Douglass. The school’s main tower had a cruciform plan, and the design separated rooms

by function; the more public and recreational activities were located in the broad, two-

story base of the school, while academic activities were relegated to the tower. The clear

distinction of function through form was a tactic used in many suburban campus plans the

previous decade. As an urban campus, the separation of function through a high-rise

42Atlanta Board of Education, Superintendent’s Report: Buildings and Grounds December 13, 1965, 29. 43 Ibid., 30. 99

design minimized the normal footprint for a decentralized suburban school, which usually

took the form of a windmill layout, a campus setting with central courtyard, or the

fingerlike extenuated designs seen in the Crow Island School plan. Like its Harper and

Douglass predecessors in Atlanta, the flexibility of the plan was praised in newspaper

announcements and architectural brochures. Woodson was planned as a school for team

teaching, with interior partitions that would allow teachers to teach a range of students,

from groups of 25 to 200 in one setting.44

Another rising trend that the Woodson design employed was the color coding

floors within the building to ease student circulation and orientation, and to break up the

monotony between floors. This method was used in the award-winning plan for the

Mount Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vermont, built in 1965.

Supergraphics and instructive color patterns were popular among architects designing

institutional buildings. Supergraphics and color, however, were overwhelmingly

employed in the construction and design of commercial buildings.45

University City High School (1967-1971) in Philadelphia was similarly organized to accommodate maximum flexibility without completely embracing the open plan

(Figure 18). The school was initially designed as a science magnet school part of the ES

’70 network of demonstration schools for new non-graded curriculum. ES ‘70 students were to work independently with a curriculum designed for their specific needs. An ambitious design proposal for the school declared:

44 Grant, “Eight-Story High School Slated in NE Washington,” A1. 45 Some architectural historians and theorists dismiss supergraphics as a fad, although there has been recent scholarship dedicated to the subject matter that attempts to re-examine the trend as a conscious means of engaging the human senses and rendering a wall from a passive to expressive state. See John McMorrough, “Blowing the Lid Off Paint: The Architectural Coverage of Supergraphics,” In “Rethinking Representation,” special issue, Hunch: The Berlage Institute Report no. 11 (Winter 2006). 100

The interior of the school building would look much more like a library or science museum than a normal school. There would not be many of the standard corridors and classrooms because, in general, there would be no classes. There would be seminar rooms, group workrooms, and even lecture halls because, although learning processes would be individualized, a considerable amount of student time would be spent on group projects or activities. Each student would have his own individual study carrel, a partially enclosed desk and locker combination. Clusters of these carrels would be scattered throughout the building, usually centered around a teacher’s office [emphasis added].46

University City High was envisioned as the epitome of the open-plan school; however, later neighborhood conflicts with the proposed curriculum would require the

West Philadelphia Corporation, the main entity backing the construction of the school, to dedicate only a fraction of the flexible curriculum to math and science. The spatial organization of the accepted design reflected these changes, and classrooms were partitioned similarly to those at Woodson High, offering the option for expansion as instructors saw fit (Figures 19-21). The second and third floors were organized in a

“cluster plan” similar to the house and sub-school concepts of suburban schools. The cluster plan created subdivisions within the school for different modes of teaching in science, humanities, and the instructional materials center.47

Flexibility and increased student independence were aimed to indoctrinate

democratic freedom in young adults. The freedom of choice and responsibility that came

with that privilege was proposed as a learning tool that a strict curriculum could not

provide, as the design proposal indicated:

The main intention of the system is to extend to the student an opportunity to obtain freedom by assuming responsibility. Future citizens of a democracy

46 Clifford Swartz, “A Design Proposal for the Philadelphia Science-Math ‘Magnet’ High School,” n.d., 4, Accession 350 Series 6: Public Education, Box 22, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 47 H2L2 Architects, “University City High,” October 1967, 13, Accession 350 Series 6: Public Education, Box 22, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 101

should experience these intertwined concepts at an early age and in a school setting where the consequences of mistakes are not long lasting.48

School administrators were excited about the prospect of engaging students in a mature

learning process, and imparting the wisdom of independent choice that students would

face outside the classroom and after graduation.

A major innovation that was incorporated into the University City High design

was the inclusion of a sky-lit central common area for students to gather and cross- circulate between classes (Figure 22). This large communal space was meant to provide a “moment of leisure and sociability” to students in an otherwise compact building situated on a tight and busy central city site (Figure 23).49 This interior space was a

substitute for social gathering outside the school, and similar to the grand complexes at

William Penn and Dunbar, re-emphasized the school as a microcosm of community. The

school became complete within itself, and de-emphasized interaction with the community

outside. Conversely, this inward focus added to the fortification of the designs and the

disconnect from the neighborhood and community.

Emergence of the Open-Plan School

While flexibility was a key component in the design concepts of most educational facilities after World War II, many of them did not fully embrace the open-plan concept.

The trend of designing open-plan schools in the United States mimicked trends evolving in England, where open-plan designs went hand in hand with “integrated” teaching.50

The earliest example of this development is the 1956 Amersham School designed in

48 Swartz, “A Design Proposal for the Philadelphia Science-Math ‘Magnet’ High School,” 4. 49 H2L2 Architects, “University City High,” 13. 50 This term did not carry the same connotations as it did in the United States. Integrated teaching was a variation of the team teaching method in the United States. 102

response to a study of junior school requirements by members of the British Education

Ministry Development Group. Architects and members of the Education Ministry’s

Development Group had observed the advantageous aspects of “blurring of division

between one subject and another, between theoretical and practical work and between

one lesson period and the next.”51

The widely circulated 1967 Plowden Report developed by the British Central

Advisory Council for Education declared “it is both an educational and an architectural responsibility to see that the shape of schools is determined by educational trends rather than by architectural fashion.” 52 The development of the open plan was regarded as the

epitome of addressing student learning needs. The report was instructive to curricular

changes and the major overhauls that needed to be enacted in British education. The

report also provided diagrams of variations configurations of the open-plan to school

administrators nationwide (Figure 24).

The Plowden Report focused on primary school education, consequently most of

the first open schools seen in the United States were elementary schools located in the

suburbs.53 Open-plan designs quickly spread to all levels of instruction, from elementary

to high school by the mid-1970s. Since they were tied to the concerns of an evolving

approach to education, open-plan schools “represented a commitment to the belief that

education is dynamic – that change is inevitable.”54 Open-plan schools offered increased

51 Central Advisory Council for Education, Children and their Primary Schools (London: HMSO, 1967), 395 http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/plowden/plowden1-28.html (accessed January 18, 2011). 52 Ibid., 397. 53 Dorothy Rich, “New School Plan,” Washington Post, August 24, 1969, 129. 54 Ben E. Graves, School Ways: The Planning and Design of America’s Schools (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1993), 29. 103

flexibility and few walls, enabling teaching staff to create learning spaces to fit teaching

needs.

The success of open-plan schools was particularly dependent on the correct

implementation of their design with new teaching methods that complemented the

specially configured spaces, innovative furnishings, and carpeting. Teaching methods

included team teaching, modular teaching, and non-graded levels of instruction that

emphasized the individuality of each student’s learning processes. Two innovative

developments in interior design that were products of the open-plan system was the creation of modular furniture units that could be adapted to various spaces within the schools, as well as carpeting throughout. An early example of a modular unit was the Q-

Space, which was concerned with human scale and individual study spaces in an

increasingly flexible learning environment (Figure 25). For issues of practicality,

carpeting reduced noise and created more surface area for the absorption of sounds that

would potentially distract students in an environment that lacked walls. Ronald

Beckman, director of the Research and Design Institute in Providence, Rhode Island,

supported the use of carpet in open-plan schools because it could become a teaching

surface upon which instructors and students gathered. He also claimed that carpet was

anti-institutional, created a more welcoming feeling for students, and could be used

interactively with graphics and color.55

One of the earliest open-plan high schools in the United States was set in a rural

area and consolidated seven pre-existing high schools. Pinecrest High School in

Southern Pines, North Carolina, was built to house approximately 1500 students and was

55 “The Human Factor in Design… More Than Just a Pretty Chair: A Conversation with Ronald Beckman,” American School and University 43, no. 8 (April 1971): 24. 104

buildings that were connected by exterior ramps and walkways. The interior was free

flowing with “no divider partitions [to] separate one teaching group from another.”56 The

campus buildings touched corners so that they created an interior courtyard, and included

cantilevered roofs for protection against the outdoor elements on the walkways.

Teaching methods were combined with emerging technology because lessons were

designed as computerized “modular” units that lasted 20 minutes each. Groups of 3 to

160 students could work independently to complete the units. Pinecrest High represented

the prototypical open-plan school that contained a curriculum that supported the ideas

behind the design.

The 550,000-square-foot William Penn High School was designed and

constructed over a laborious eight year period (1966-1974) by the acclaimed architectural

firm Mitchell/Giurgola (Figure 26). It was by far the most celebrated design of all the

schools in this study.57 Though the school was built in an urban North Philadelphia

setting, the plan and programmatic layout mirrored those of post-war suburban schools

with a large campus, four separate academic buildings, and specialized facilities for a

magnet school curriculum (Figure 27). The school was laid out over a seven-acre site, with athletic facilities, administrative offices and the student union, and clusters of classrooms in separate buildings. Classroom clusters, also called “academic houses” served 500 students, contained two-story learning centers with 250 semi-private carrels

56 “Open Plan High School Consolidates Seven Existing Schools Into One Unit,” American School and University 43 no. 4 (December 1970): 38. 57 The school was featured in international architectural journals “William Penn High School,” Process: Architecture no. 2 (October 1997): 175-177 and “William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1975,” Parametro 9 no. 71 (November 1978): 51-54. 105

(reminiscent of the Q-space), as well as flexible classrooms and faculty offices (Figure

28).58

Granville Woodson, the superintendent of Washington school system in the

1970s, embraced open plans as they gained prominence in the literature of school and

architectural journals in the United States. This was evident in the 1971 proclamation by

the Washington Post’s architecture critic, Wolf Von Eckardt that:

Washington’s school board is at last ready to break through the old, eggcrate classroom walls… All of the 11 new public school buildings currently on the drawing boards call for the so-called “open plan” that replaces the rigid physical and intellectual confinement of enclosed classrooms…59

A turning point in programmatic and spatial organization in Washington secondary

school design was the creation of Shaw Junior High School (1973-1977) the city’s first

open-plan secondary school. It would soon be followed by Paul Laurence Dunbar High

School. Dunbar’s design was the crystallization of aesthetic and programmatic intentions

seen at both Woodson High and Shaw Junior High; it was a high-rise open-plan school, a combination previously not attempted in the city.

Shaw Junior High School by the firm Sulton-Campbell Architects was a centerpiece in the 1969 Shaw Urban Renewal Area plan, which had been adopted by the

District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA).60 The plan was not a

wholesale demolition plan; instead it embraced rehabilitative efforts to implant thriving

institutions and housing into the riot-stricken area. The school’s construction aimed to

58 “William Penn High School,” Process: Architecture no. 2 (October 1977): 176. 59 Wolf Von Eckardt, “No Eggcrate, This,” Washington Post, March 27, 1971, C1. 60 Bruce Monroe and Malcolm X elementary schools were open-plan schools in Washington that were constructed in 1973 before Shaw. See Alice Bonner, “D.C. Schools Open Without Problems, Delays,” Washington Post, September 7, 1973, C1. 106

reinvigorate the post-riot community and strengthen its image. 61 The locally based

Model Inner City Community Organization (MICCO), headed by Walter Fauntroy,

worked in conjunction with the RLA to ensure the community had adequate

representation in the design process. The school’s architecture firm and consulting

engineers were African Americans, and their selection for the project was a reflection of

the desire of black architects and other construction professionals involved in urban

renewal plans. They wanted to have meaningful input and a positive impact on the

restoration of Washington’s riot-torn neighborhoods centered on the U Street and

Seventh Street corridors in the Shaw neighborhood.

While the proposed design served as a source of wonder for teachers and students

alike, it was not praised or supported by the school’s principal, Percy Ellis.62 Ellis’ apprehensions about the open plan reflected a fear of its improper use, or at least its logistical limitations. Ellis was also concerned with the inability of instructors to maintain order in an open-plan school. His trepidation was not the only voice of concern about the popularity of the trend. Design researcher Ronald Beckman bemoaned the idea that for many school districts the utilization of open-plan designs was less concerned with innovative teaching and more an issue of economical design.63

During the highly publicized creation of Shaw Junior High, plans for the new

Dunbar High School were coming into fruition with cooperation between city officials

and neighborhood activists. The building was designed in the late 1960s, and was an

61 United States National Capital Planning Commission, Frederick Gutheim, and Antoinette J. Lee, Worthy of the Nation: Washington, From L’Enfant to the National Capital Planning Commission (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 311. 62 Courtland Milloy, “$13 Million Junior High Replaces 'Shameful' Shaw,” Washington Post, September 5, 1977, C1. 63 “The Human Factor in Design… More Than Just a Pretty Chair: A Conversation with Ronald Beckman,” 24. 107

ambitious undertaking that was at the leading edge of innovative trends. The school’s

design was a direct response to issues of overcrowding, building obsolescence, failing

student achievement, the negative attitude toward an aging 1916 building that was not

properly maintained. This new school, like other schools that employed urban renewal

funds, particularly Shaw Junior High, and University City and William Penn high schools

in Philadelphia, was meant to combat larger sociological ills in its community. Not only was it planned as a prototype for solving the problem of urban siting, it was also created to be an exemplar in open-plan education, team teaching, and community revitalization.

The new Dunbar High was envisioned as the shining urban model in the nation’s capital,

one which would serve as a guide for successful school and community planning for

other municipalities across the nation.

The design and construction of the new $17 million Dunbar High School was a synthesis of aesthetic and programmatic intentions seen at both Woodson High and Shaw

Junior High in its high-rise, open-plan configuration (Figure 29). Von Eckardt praised the design noting “its brick and mortar arrangement does away with the confining, authoritarian rigidity of the old egg crate classrooms and recognizes that the constant in our time is change, that education is a fluid process.”64 The design was the most

ambitious, avant-garde, and expensive for a public school in the metropolitan area,

costing more than four times the amount estimated to bring the building it replaced up to

code.65

Mayor Walter Washington first proposed the request for funds to replace the 1916

Dunbar High School plant in the city’s 1972 public schools budget. The budget had been

64 Von Eckardt as quoted in Jervis Anderson, “A Very Special Monument,” New Yorker (March 20, 1978): 111. 65 Michael Kiernan, “Razing Fight Begins Anew,” Washington Star, February 28, 1975, B1. 108

announced in 1970, and the idea of replacing the old Dunbar had been a topic of interest

as early as 1968 when the Board of Education declared the building “had passed its

prime.”66 Change was afoot, and in 1970 the principal of Dunbar, Howard F. Bolden,

was reassigned and replaced by the assistant principal of Eastern High School, Phyllis

Beckwith, because of Bolden’s inability to properly discipline students and manage

student unrest.67 The design for the new Dunbar High School was made public in a late

1971 Washington Post article. Architectural critic Wolf Von Eckardt contended the

innovation of the design was “something that Washington’s public school builders have

not dared since 1868 when the Franklin School at 13th and K Streets N.W., was built and

won first prize as a model school building at the Vienna Exposition of 1873.”68 Pressure for a new design came from a multitude of sources, including the national spotlight on the school’s sports successes, and the construction of Howard D. Woodson High School.

Robert deJongh, a twenty-seven-year-old native of the Virgin Islands and a graduate of the Howard University School of Architecture, was the project designer who

ingeniously adapted a prototypical suburban programmatic layout for an urban setting.

DeJongh created a design based on a 90-foot tower that would not be divided into ten autonomous, stacked floors, but instead would be a continuous flow of space best experienced in staggered split level areas (Figures 30-34). Von Eckardt explained:

The levels are grouped into three ‘houses,’ that is, complete schools within the school. Each ‘house’ has four levels, each taking half of the total floor area, which form a complete unit for one age group. Each has its own lecture and instruction areas, studies, laboratories, teacher preparation centers, a kitchenette

66 Peter Milius, “‘72 D.C. School Budget May Mean Larger Classes and Fewer Electives,” Washington Post, November 10, 1970: A1. The reference to the 1968 declaration that Dunbar needed to be replaced is found in Jacqueline Trescott, “Old Dunbar High School: Too Good to Tear Down?” Washington Star, n.d. 67 “Dunbar High Principal Is Reassigned,” Washington Post, February 5, 1970, D5. 68 Wolf Von Eckardt, “Design for an Urban Setting,” Washington Post, December 11, 1971, E1. 109

for food preparation, and a combined lunch and multi-purpose space and an outdoor terrace for lounging and recreation.69

The separation of the space into schools is the urban vertical equivalent to early postwar programmatic solutions for suburban campuses, one that considered site limitations and attempted to create small-scale intimacy within a dense package. When the new Dunbar building opened in 1977, students and staff alike were optimistic about its innovative planning and design. As one 18-year-old student stated “We are proud to have this school… and we’ll see that it is properly taken care of.”70

The Dunbar school design was the most modern and all-encompassing in the

Washington metropolitan area. It included spacious athletic facilities and up-to-date

science labs. Additionally, the dining area featured “wall to wall carpeting, as well as a

café styled interior with small four-person tables that stand in marked contrast to the long

‘prison’ style tables which are mainstays in other school cafeterias.”71 This design was not executed exactly as planned in the architect’s rendering; in the modified plan the

terraces that were prominent in the tower drawing were omitted, creating a more

pronounced feeling of fortification (Figure 35).

The aesthetic expression was consistent with the original design of two

monumental buildings that Von Eckardt mentioned in his description of the new Dunbar building: the Yale Art and Architecture building (1958-1964) by Paul Rudolph, and the

69 Von Eckardt, “Design for an Urban Setting,” E6. Von Eckardt is one of two sources that identified deJongh as the principle architect of the project. The other source is the title plate for the blueprints on the new Dunbar design in the preliminary project drawings dated October 25, 1973, in the District of Columbia Archives blueprint collection. In the blueprints Hector Carillo is listed as a project designer. The preliminary design submission by Bryant & Bryant listed Charles I. Bryant as partner in charge of the project, with project co-coordinators listed as Hector Carrillo and Robert deJongh. Bryant & Bryant, n.d. Preliminary Submission for Dunbar Senior High School Replacement, 4, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C. 70 Lawrence Feinberg, “We Must Have Pride In It,” Washington Post, April 13, 1977, C1. 71 R. C. Newell, “New Dunbar High School Opens, Still Facing Same Old Problems,” Washington Afro American, April 16, 1977, C1. 110

Boston City Hall (1963-1968) by Kallman, McKinnell & Knowles. Von Eckardt stated

that the new school design lacked the “contrived complexity” of the Rudolph building

and did not exert the “complex monumentality” of the Kallman, McKinnell, & Knowles

building.72 However, the similarities in design were still present. The salient

characteristics of evolving Brutalist architecture, such as the concrete and heavy massing

were the most obvious, while the interior details proved to be most influenced by the Art

and Architecture building. In Rudolph’s building the staggered levels and open central

courtyard were intended to promote collegial interaction, an atmosphere that was

emulated in Dunbar through the central ramp system that produced the effect of an atrium

with classrooms on the periphery (Figure 36). Principal Phyllis Beckwith, an active patroller of the hallways in the old Dunbar building, strongly supported the open-plan

design “because of the wide open sight lines” that enabled her to “stand on one floor and

observe students on both the half-level above and the half-level below.”73 The various

levels of the high school were connected with escalators, stairs, and elevators, which

created an impressive network of circulatory movements through the building that added

to the feeling of its grand scale, and “let the building pulsate with life, much like the

veins and arteries in a body.”74

While the Woodson, Dunbar, and Shaw school designs were groundbreaking for

secondary educational design, these buildings were part of a larger contextual shift in

urban design in Washington informed by the popularity of monumental modernism in the

United States. In 1975 the designs for both the Watha T. Daniel Library and the J. Edgar

Hoover Building were completed and the buildings had special dedication ceremonies on

72 Von Eckardt, “Design for an Urban Setting,” E6. 73 Donia Mills, “Phyllis Beckwith: Portrait of a Woman and Her School,” Washington Star, E5. 74 Ibid. 111

September 27th and 30th, respectively. The library, named for the first chairman of the

D.C. Model Cities Commission, and board member of the Model Inner City Community

Organization, was a component of the Shaw Urban Renewal Area plan designed by

Eason Cross of Cross & Adreon, Architects. The unique and compact building, an

expression in concrete on a triangle lot, was located two blocks east of the Shaw Junior

High School site. The theme for the dedication ceremony was “Watha T. Daniel/Shaw

Neighborhood Library: A Landmark of Social Change,” exemplifying the merge of black social politics with the reconstruction of the post-riot built environment.75 The grand

educational complex of the University of the District of Columbia campus (1976), civic

structures such as the I. M. Pei designed East Wing of the National Gallery of Art (1974-

1978) and the Washington Convention Center (1983) and even religious structures such

as the Third Church of Christ, Scientist (1971), just two blocks from the White House,

were all part of a greater vision for a Washington that redefined monumentality in terms

of massing, materiality, and a rejection of classical facades for impressive and

complicated geometric volumes.

Form-Making, Expression, and the Material Fortitude of Concrete

Material we now use in architecture we know only for its superior strength but not for its meaningful form. Concrete and steel must become greater than the engineer. The expected wonders in concrete and steel confront us. We know from the spirit of architecture that their characteristics must be in harmony with the spaces that want to be and evoke what spaces can be.76 Louis Kahn, 1957

75 D.C. Public Library, “Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library History,” http://www.dclibrary.org/node/742 (accessed August 26, 2010). 76 Louis Kahn, “Architecture is the Thoughtful Making of Spaces,” Perspecta 4 (1957): 2. 112

Early urban crisis schools offered the economy of compactness and flexibility,

benefiting from the properties of materials such as concrete and steel to create new spaces

for learning. Siting affected the articulation of the mass and the creation of the form.

The plan controlled circulation and interactions within the school. The materiality made

a bold statement to the external and internal worlds about the building – its permanence,

its impenetrability, its status. Urban crisis schools would grow in scale and complexity in

the late 1960s and early 1970s, exploiting the potential for expansion upward and out as

student body populations were predicted to increase. Harper High School (1962) was

built to house 1200 students upon completion, Douglass High School (1968) 2400

students, University City High (1971) 3000 students, Woodson (1972) was designed to

expand and accommodate over 2000, and William Penn (1974) was constructed to house

3000 students.77 The schools grew larger and more fortified as a direct result of the urban turmoil in which they were conceived.

The frequency and destructive nature of large-scale urban riots in the United

States increased significantly in the 1960s. Many of these were related to racial conflicts that were exacerbated by job and housing discrimination, urban renewal, police brutality, and concentrated poverty. As city officials battled with white flight, urban riots compounded the problem of en masse abandonment. Social, political, and urban historians still argue the effectiveness and legacy of these riots. Were urban riots insurrections of the foulest kind, or a legitimate form of protest and empowerment? How did these events effect perceptions of the city in the late 1960s and 1970s, and how did

77 Atlanta Board of Education, “Progress Toward a Better Environment for Learning,” (1962), 9, Atlanta Public Schools Archives; Atlanta Board of Education, Superintendent’s Report: Buildings and Grounds, 29; H2L2, “University City High, (1967) 2; Mike DeBonis, “End of an Error,” Washington City Paper, February 20, 2008 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34603/end-of-an-error (accessed January 26, 2011); “William Penn High School,” Process: Architecture, 176. 113

they alter the evolution of design in urban areas, particularly civic, commercial, and, of

particular interest here, educational?

Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington all experienced rioting in the 1960s, all

had major funding from federal anti-poverty and housing programs, and all built substantial secondary education facilities as a part of late 1960s urban renewal plans.

Philadelphia experienced its most severe urban riot in 1964, Atlanta in 1966, and

Washington in 1968.Scholar of strategic planning Ricardo Millett noted that “the promotion of a definition of ‘widespread citizen participation’ in terms of increased decision-making roles for the ‘have-nots’ was party facilitated by social disturbances.”78

Schools and neighborhoods that benefited from the federal funding had potential for great improvement; however, the piecemeal nature of the plans could not have countered the devastation of the riots and subsequent desertion of the cities for the suburbs.

The architecture of secondary schools in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington

reflect this trend of upheaval that permeated the psyche of design across the nation. The

architecture of authority that policed student behavior is expressed in the materiality,

siting, massing, orientation, and interior design of these schools. Some administrators

welcomed this approach because they considered youth the key figures in rioting in major

cities. Psychologist Louis N. William and historian Mohamed El-Khawas associated student damage to school property with larger signs of unrest in the community by declaring that “the revolt in the schools is a microcosm of the revolt of Black people in

78 Ricardo A. Millett, Examination of “Widespread Citizen Participation” in the Model Cities Program and the Demands of Ethnic Minorities for a Greater Decision Making Role in American Cities (San Francisco: R & E Research Associates, 1977), 111. 114

American society.”79 Whether psychological or physical, the unrest attributed to African

American youth was part and parcel of the resulting designs of schools in which they learned.

All the schools examined in this study expressed exterior fortitude, which became

incrementally more pronounced as the urban condition in central locations proved to be extremely volatile (Figure 37). The 1978 Douglass High School yearbook celebrating the ten year anniversary of the school stated:

The late sixties was an era of civil and military turbulence. During this period, my doors were opening to the community’s youth, and I was obligated to supply them with a quality education, despite outside disturbances. When I was small, I always knew I’d grow up to be a big, strong building…80

But what of this need for a building to be strong, secure, and protective? How could

these school designs create comfort within a fortified setting? How could a student feel

at ease? In all the schools constructed after Harper High, the increasing openness of plan

and visibility of the school fell in line with the theories of defensible space as proposed

by architect and city planner Oscar Newman. School administrators such as Phyllis

Beckwith at Dunbar were able to participate in “natural surveillance” of the students and

classrooms because of the open plan, and the atrium inner court of University City High

created a space over which students felt a territorial authority. In a sense, the community

of “eyes on the street” that Jane Jacobs and Newman promoted in their work was meant

to be recreated in the schools to help maintain a sense of order.81

79 Louis N. Williams and Mohamed El-Khawas, “A Philosophy of Black Education,” Journal of Negro Education 47, no. 2 (Spring 1978): 186. 80 Douglass High School Yearbook Polaris, 1978, 4-5, Atlanta Public Schools Archives. 81 See Oscar Newman, Defensible Space: Crime Prevention Through Urban Design (New York: Collier Books, 1973) and Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York: Random House, 1961). 115

All of the buildings employed concrete, in various forms and methods, in their

construction. Some buildings, such as Woodson High, used it in a demonstrative manner

on the exterior while other buildings, such as Douglass High and Dunbar High used it as

a complement to expanses of brick wall (Figures 38-39). William Penn used the

“simplicity of construction” of poured-in-place concrete to unify the complex nature of the project.82 The design of Harper High School was praised for innovative structural use

of reinforced concrete and won a Progressive Architecture Design Award in the category

for education in 1962.83 The materiality of Harper is what set it apart from its immediate predecessors. Not only was the frame of reinforced concrete, the interior walls were painted concrete block, and the exterior walls were poured-in place concrete with columns.

Douglass differed greatly in outward expression from Harper, simply stating its monumentality by providing a broad brick and concrete face to the street. However, both

Harper and Douglass employed fortified characteristics in their design that was seen most acutely in high schools built in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At Harper this quality was more protective than oppressive with heavy, low eaves (Figures 40-41). Harper was repeatedly described as “imposing” in reports related to its opening.84 Similarly,

Douglass possessed an “exterior wall with minimum window opening [that] not only gives the psychological protection to students, but increases efficiency and reduces cost in air conditioning and heating.”85 These schools were becoming increasingly defensive

82 “William Penn High School,” Process: Architecture, 176. 83 “Design For Harper High School Wins Nat'l Architectural Award,” Atlanta Daily World, January 20, 1962, 6. 84 Stanley S. Scott, “Student Comments Express Pride, Appreciation For New Structure,” Atlanta Daily World, April 24, 1963, 1 and Joel W. Smith, “Imposing Harper High To Open Doors Jan. 3,” Atlanta Daily World, December 30, 1962, 1. 85Atlanta Board of Education, Superintendent’s Report: Buildings and Grounds, 29. 116

through their outward massing and general lack of fenestration. The defensiveness was

more pronounced in the bold shape and materiality of Douglass, which was built of a reinforced concrete frame and a brick and pre-cast concrete exterior wall.86 The concrete

materiality was not softened by the application of white paint as it was at Harper.

Douglass’s external expression made a strong statement about its watchful and secure

role in its community.

The various iterations of concrete in the school designs signaled innovations that

were following trends set by some of the most celebrated architects of the time,

particularly Paul Rudolph and Louis Kahn. What these two architects achieved was the

ability to give form to buildings through heavy materiality, intense geometry, and strong

vertical or horizontal gestures. The Richards Medical Building by Kahn completed in

1961 is exemplar of these qualities. Kahn drew upon the bold repetitive lines of the

concrete framing to accent the strong vertical gestures of the towers. Architectural

historian William Jordy emphasized the neo-medieval nature of the towers, and described

the work of Kahn as “blunt” and “real.” Kahn himself talked about his love for the

“archaic” in architecture, and these qualities are certainly reflected in his work.87 The massing of the Richards Medical Building, as well as that of Yale’s Art and Architecture building were two of the most iconic images of modern architecture in the early 1960s.

Both of these institutional buildings expressed a palpable defensive stance in their

forms and materials. At the Art and Architecture building Paul Rudolph exploited the

86 The use of brick was less popular in national award winning school designs of the mid-to late 1960s and early 1970s, however when brick was used it sparingly was main material and often contained glass curtain walls. One example of an award winning design that utilized brick as a primary material is the private Francis W. Parker School in Chicago where the use of brick was meant to evoke feelings of tradition, character, and domesticity. See “Walled School to Win Privacy,” Architectural Forum (November 1963): 83. 87 William Jordy, “The Impact of European Modernism in the Mid-Twentieth Century,” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 361-363. 117

materiality of concrete by creating a hand bush-hammered and ribbed building for a vibrant, yet intimidating, texture. A similar expression of concrete texture is found on the interior of Dunbar High in Washington. All of these qualities, from the grand gesturing

to the defensiveness, from the archaic to the blunt, are found in the school buildings

discussed herein. The problem that these school buildings would face, however, was the

translation of these characteristics to their local settings and the maintenance of the materials over time.

Despite high praise in the architectural press, there were clear mixed reactions to the concrete physicality of the school designs. The grand and powerful form of Woodson

High School was likened to a corporate building by a Washington Post writer, while

Louis Kahn, a member of the Philadelphia Art Commission decried the design of

University City High School because he believed the design “[did] not give light to its students.” Kahn declared that schools were increasingly built as “windowless areas that

look[ed] like prisons.”88 These opinions are indicative of the mixed legacy of the urban

crisis school buildings. Some critics consider the innovative designs as modern and chic,

while others argue that they do nothing more than embody the oppressiveness of

institutions for criminalized youth. This tension would continue to dominate the

88 See Martha M. Hamilton, “Boosterism Catching at H. D. Woodson,” Washington Post, May 5, 1975, A1; Constance Faulk, “Art Jury Holds Up Approval of 2 Schools ‘Like Prisons,’” Evening Bulletin, February 25, 1969. For commentary on William Penn and University City High School as metaphorical prisons see Inga Saffron, “Changing Skyline: William Penn High: Magnificent Folly,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 13, 2009 http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/inga_saffron/20090313_Changing_Skyline__William_Penn_Hi gh__Magnificent_folly.html (accessed May 5, 2009); George E. Thomas, “From Our House to the ‘Big House:’ Architectural Design as Visible Metaphor in the School Buildings of Philadelphia,” Journal of Planning History 5 no. 3 (2006): 233-235; and Michael Clapper, “The Constructed World of Postwar Philadelphia Area Schools: Site Selection, Architecture, and the Landscape of Inequality,” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2008), 289-291, 296-301. For commentary on Washington schools see Mike DeBonis, “End of an Error,” Washington City Paper, February 20, 2008,” http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34603/end-of-an-error (accessed January 26, 2011). 118 discussion of the success, or lack thereof, in school designs addressing the multitude of issues set forth by educational reformers and city administrators.

119

Chapter Three

New Power Dynamics: Community Politics and Urban Renewal

A final approach [to class and race integration in cities] … is to perfect techniques for stabilizing racially transitional neighborhoods. To be effective they must be an element in a comprehensive program for expanding the supply of housing available to non-whites at all price levels. Also, it must be realized that there are some neighborhoods which, because of location in relation to the growth of areas of non-white concentration, will not respond to this treatment. This only illustrates that cities are not static institutions. Their physical facilities change and their people move. The problems of class and color can never be solved in any one neighborhood. Today they cannot be solved in the central city. They are problems of metropolitan areas [emphasis added]. Robert C. Weaver, 1960

Robert C. Weaver’s observations on the intersections of race, class, and urban

renewal in American cities reveal important facts about the nature of post-World War II

cities. Weaver, a graduate of the M Street School (later Dunbar High School) in

Washington was the deputy state housing commissioner of New York City and vice-

president of the City Housing and Redevelopment Board. He would later become

director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the first African

American appointed to a cabinet position. Weaver identified the problematics of racial turnover in cities and the need for race to be a factor in comprehensive plans, but in a manner different from previous discriminatory urban policies.1 Race needed to be considered in terms of integration and stabilization of population demographics, not segregation. Weaver’s remarks were foreshadowed the impact that suburbanization would have on the racial demographics and political trends of major cities. Despite the increasing urbanization of the United States population as families moved from rural to urban and then suburban locations, the idea of planning for a metropolitan area, creating a

1 Robert C. Weaver, “Class, Race and Urban Renewal,” Land Economics 36, no. 3 (August 1960): 250. 120

federal department on urban affairs, and allocating money for the purpose of

comprehensive planning across county and state lines was not without its critics.2 The challenges of the cities, however, outweighed opposition to the creation of a federal agency dealing specifically with urban issues, and the Department of Housing and Urban

Development was established in 1965 to improve conditions in major deindustrializing cities across the nation.

Racial and economic turnover in central cities caused concern about local politics,

concentrated poverty, and a potentially decreased tax base for public amenities. Various

new social and political conditions in the city were coalescing and laid the groundwork

for shifts in the demographic and power dynamics of urban centers. City legislators

began thinking large, annexing nearby suburban areas to stabilize the racial balance, and

implementing federal urban renewal plans to attract white middle-class consumers back to the city. Although urban planners created large-scale projects for cities and constructed federal highways connecting city to suburb, cities were not comprehensively planned as metropolitan areas as Weaver advocated. Instead, early federal plans were specifically focused on building, sustaining, and improving business and cultural districts, or razing whole sections of cities with urban renewal projects.

Examination of urban renewal plans of the urban crisis in conjunction with assessment of the increasing local activism in marginalized communities highlights the emergence of new structures of authority in black neighborhoods and urban centers. It also emphasizes the relationship between proactive and reactive methods of exuding power in the public sphere of the built environment. Communities worked to define their

2 See Robert H. Connery and Richard H. Leach, “Do We Need a Department of Urban Affairs?” Western Political Quarterly 13, no. 1 (March 1960): 99-112. 121 surroundings on their own terms as a result of failed early urban renewal plans that were detrimental to the vitality of neighborhoods. Urban riots, electoral politics that increased black representation on city and state levels, and grassroots activism that worked to infuse renewal plans with a greater sensitivity to local needs were three methods of building structures of power in the black community.

Studies of urban renewal in the United States focus heavily on the early 1950s plans, but often overlook the late 1960s strategies designed to increase citizen participation. Many of these later plans incorporated regular input from community activist groups, decreasing the speed of program implementation but also working to address local issues in a more specific manner. Education was a key component in these later urban renewal strategies, and school construction was regarded as a central selling point for renewal program execution. In Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington, large- scale urban renewal plans aimed at downtown revitalization and cultural centers made way for piecemeal plans spurred by Great Society programs such as Model Cities that included community input and school construction. This trend reflected nationwide planning interests since urban renewal was increasingly criticized as a racially motivated planning vehicle, and as urban unrest shook cities nationwide.3

The early goals of urban renewal were based on arguments for economic stabilization and growth in cities that were declining in population and losing a substantial portion of their tax base to the suburbs. The matters of race and class were particularly complicated and troublesome issues that were never fully addressed in a

3 See Wendell E. Pritchett, “Which Urban Crisis? Regionalism, Race, and Urban Policy, 1960-1974,” Journal of Urban History 34 no. 2 (January 2008): 266-286, for a discussion on the change in focus of federal urban policy from regulating metropolitan growth to issues heavily concentrated on race and urban centers. 122

comprehensive way. Weaver, one of the earliest liberal African American advocates of

urban renewal declared in 1960 that the point of urban redevelopment was not the

destruction of African American communities, but the stabilization of white middle-class

communities in urban cities because of economic concerns.4 He stated that “in any given

locality the problem has three manifestations: creation of new areas in which [white]

middle-class families will establish stable communities, rehabilitation or partial renewal

of areas which will attract and hold middle-class families, and the arresting or preventing

the desertion of middle-class families from existing areas of residence.”5 Weaver also argued that the creation of new, attractive, and racially-mixed schools could aid in the urban renewal process, but only if suburban schools did not remain an appealing option for homogeneity to white middle-class families.6 This viewpoint that privileged the

white middle class would only be deserted after concentrated poverty and major urban

unrest in cities became the impetus for social welfare programs that worked in tandem

with urban renewal plans in African American communities.

Planning urban renewal for economic stability that catered to the white middle

class was clearly indicated a lack of interest in poor communities of color. Floyd

McKissack, then leader of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) stated in 1967 that

“urban renewal is colored removal … the black man is being driven out of his areas like

the Indian was moved off his land onto reservations. The black man is sympathetically

being eliminated from American society.”7 This sentiment was echoed in African

American neighborhoods across the nation that felt the destructive impact on their

4 Weaver, “Class, Race and Urban Renewal,” 240. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., 248. 7 “Black Power Meet Calls for Unity,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 29, 1967, 1- 2. 123

communities through relocation and dispersal into areas that lacked the cohesiveness

their previous location embodied.

Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington experienced the decimation of traditional

black communities at the hands of large-scale urban renewal. What is distinctly overlooked is the way education and urban renewal became melded together as partners in later planning initiatives targeted at black communities. A paternalistic sentiment ran deep in urban renewal parlance; however the idea of a transfer of power to the community was markedly different in later plans. The changing tide in urban renewal plans in these three cities mirrors the evolution of thinking behind urban renewal from the early 1950s to the late 1970s.

Historian Ronald Bayor described the characteristics of this change in urban renewal as occurring in three phases over three decades in Atlanta. Bayor depicted the first phase in the 1950s as tearing down slums for commercial rebuilding, the second phase in the 1960s as slum clearance for city needs in the form of a stadium, civic center, and expressway, and finally, the third, more humane approach, that was focused on rehabilitation of the slums.8 Projects that focused on creating downtown business

districts were abandoned for those that added resources to neighborhoods. Black communities wrestled with urban renewal to make the movement one that was beneficial to them. Whereas urban renewal was initially seen as a foreign form of authority that was forced upon black communities, some black communities learned from the lessons of earlier failed plans and attempted to make the system work for them, not against them.

This change occurred as urban renewal plans moved from the offices of chambers of

8 Ronald H. Bayor, Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 70. 124

commerce into community development centers backed by federal initiative money.

Urban renewal across the nation was not a monolithic movement. Renewal boosters paid

lip service to the idea of building capital for the larger community, albeit in many cases

the effort was too little and too late. As Bayor stated “In all these stages [of urban

renewal], including the last, more housing was destroyed than was built or repaired, even

though the federal government had ordered by 1968 ‘that a city could no longer destroy

more housing than it created.’”9 Urban renewal rebuilt cities at the same time that it

destroyed housing for the urban poor.

Community Politics, Education, and Model Cities

Between 1960 and 1980 there was increasing political activism in the United

States on the local, state, and federal levels in which cultural, social, and economic

individual and collective empowerment was the goal of change. There was a disconnect,

however, in power acquisition and actual results because many of the major political

players were considered to be figureheads who were constrained by partisan allegiance.

Additionally, structures of authority created a hierarchy in which power could be attained

to a certain degree, but not enough to effect wholesale change in major cities. Sociologist

Sethard Fisher described these political gains as “fragile tendencies rather than firmly set

institutional patterns.”10 Activists found discrimination against blacks to be centered on

three main issues – education, housing, and jobs. Black activists demanded more

accountability from their elected officials, and rallied for community control of schools.

They also opposed urban renewal plans, and demanded more job opportunities for blacks

9 Ibid. 10 Sethard Fisher, ed., Power and the Black Community: A Reader on Racial Subordination in the United States (New York: Random House, 1970), ix. 125

to combat job discrimination and the perpetuation of concentrated poverty. These social

welfare issues were addressed by Great Society programs, although they proved to be

particularly difficult tasks for black legislators to address on the local level. Grassroots

campaigns backed by a mobilized voting bloc formed authority in fissures in the structure

of local and state government, but did not saturate the system.

A pivotal moment in the history of urban renewal in the United States is the series

of riots that occurred in the mid- to late 1960s. Large cities and substantial

neighborhoods such as Detroit, Watts, Newark, and Buffalo all experienced major rioting

during this period. Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington all suffered from civil unrest as well, in 1966, 1964, and 1968, respectively. The riots were most controversial means of creating an authoritative voice in the 1960s, and were numerous, deadly, destructive, and costly. Political historian James Button estimated that “in the first nine months of

1967 alone, more than 160 riots occurred.”11 Urban scholars have argued about the

relative effectiveness of rioting for black communities to gain power and authority in

their neighborhoods. It is clear that the change in atmosphere of urban centers was

partially due to the widespread occurrence of rioting. Federal legislators realized that

blacks needed to be included in the decision-making process concerning the future of city

development in their own neighborhoods.

James Button argued that funding increases for the Office of Economic

Opportunity federal programs was directly related to riots, while the Department of

Housing and Urban Development funding did not have the same positive relation.12

Therefore, political programs that attacked social poverty issues in urban communities

11 Button, Black Violence, 33. 12James W. Button, Black Violence: Political Impact of the 1960s Riots (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 71. 126

were seen as pivotal forces to abate unrest in areas that suffered from rioting in the early

1960s. This viewpoint decreased in the later 1960s as riots became more frequent and

officials feared that they would be seen as rewarding rioters.13 Even though funding for

programs in the Department of Housing and Urban Development did not significantly

increase with the frequency or severity of riots in cities, programs like Model Cities were

in place to combat issues of urban decline in many of the cities hit by riots, including

Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington.14 Button believed that urban riots, while radical

in nature, influenced federal policy to a degree that rioting had to be considered a form of

political action. Button declared that “the urban black riots, perhaps the most publicized

internal violence of the decade, were interpreted by many blacks and a number of public

leaders as meaningful, politically purposeful acts of destruction.”15 The legacy of those

riots was reflected in the way legislators determined how federal money would be

allocated to cities rocked by riots.

The impact of the riots created tension within and outside the black community.

Conservative black politicians decried the actions taken, while radicals stood behind the

idea that rioting was as equally a means of creating political change as voting, and

possibly even more effective in outcome. Regardless of political debates about the

effectiveness of rioting, the post-riot atmosphere of many cities with sizeable

disenfranchised black populations was mirrored in the built environment. School designs

such as Douglass High School in Atlanta, William Penn and University City in

13 Ibid., 54. 14 Ibid., 74. The amount of community participation in the implementation of Model Cities programs differed drastically between the cities. See Erasmus Kloman, “Citizen Participation in the Philadelphia Model Cities Program: Retrospect and Prospect,” in “Citizens Action in Model Cities and CAP Programs: Case Studies and Evaluation,” special issue, Public Administration Review 32 (September 1972): 402-408 and Irene V. Holliman, “From Crackertown to Model City? Urban Renewal and Community Building in Atlanta, 1963–1966,” Journal of Urban History 35 no. 3 (March 2009): 369-386, 371. 15 Button, Black Violence, 157. 127

Philadelphia, and Woodson and Dunbar in Washington all reflected a post-riot anxiety in

their fortified nature. The exterior of these school designs were direct commentaries on

the nature of life on the street, and the growing fear of urban youth.

Numerous federal projects had a major impact on the social welfare of urban

African American residents in the post-World War II era, including two early federal

initiatives, the Housing acts of 1949 and 1954. This legislation laid the foundation for

urban renewal programs that would occur in cities across the nation. Additionally,

Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs and War on Poverty initiatives increased

federal funding for schools, jobs, and social welfare agendas. Two of the most important

of these are the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Title 1 of the Demonstration Cities and

Metropolitan Development Act of 1966 (the Model Cities program).

Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington all participated in the Department of

Housing and Urban Development’s Model Cities program and included school

construction in their project implementation. The Model Cities program encouraged

comprehensive planning with cooperation between the city, state, and federal

government. This planning reached into the numerous sectors that affected the urban

condition, attacking societal problems through education, jobs, and neighborhood

redevelopment. The legislation required citizen participation, with citizens’ committees

and community organizations at the forefront of project implementation. Cities met this

requirement with varied levels of success, but the Shaw neighborhood in Washington was

regarded as the archetype.

Community activists were intrigued by the idea that educational needs could be

met through implementation of the Model Cities program in the local context, but were

128

wary of placing too much emphasis on the potential for impact in the neighborhoods. In

1967 a national conference was held to address the educational dimension of the Model

Cities program; however, most of the presenters spoke abstractly about the benefit of the

program for addressing education reform in troubled metropolitan areas.

Educators, design professionals, and planners feared Model Cities had the

potential to reinforce residential segregation and perpetuate the ghetto. They were

specific about these fears, but remained hopeful to the possibility of comprehensive

planning between the social services, educational, and planning sectors.16 David A.

Lewis, founder of Urban Design Associates and the graduate urban design program at

Carnegie Mellon University, discussed the “Great High School” Pittsburgh Plan, which

sought to facilitate the creation of regional networks. This would be accomplished

through careful studies for school siting in which the school district viewed schools at as

nodes in a network. These nodal schools would house upwards to 5000 students, and

push integration on a metropolitan area, thereby working against the potential to

“entrench the insularity of neighborhoods” exhibited in the Model Cities program. H.

Robert Taylor, assistant secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development

for Model Cities, referenced Stokely Carmichael’s aspiration to create a “better

segregated independent society” when he warned Model Cities had the potential to “feed

the Black Nationalist movement without the Black Nationalist’s satisfaction.”17 Taylor

16 See H. Ralph Taylor, “The Educational Dimensions of the Model Cities Program,” in Roald F. Campbell, Lucy Ann Marx, and Raphael O. Nystrand, eds., Education and the Urban Renaissance (New York: Wiley, 1968), 21-22. 17 Taylor, “The Educational Dimensions of the Model Cities Program,” 26. Ricardo A. Millett worked to debunk the idea that the federal government was “subsidizing revolution” in Examination of “Widespread Citizen Participation” in the Model Cities Program and the Demands of Ethnic Minorities for a Greater Decision Making Role in American Cities (San Francisco: R & E Research Associates, 1977). 129

was clear in his concerns about the limitations of the program, yet still hopeful about the

process of addressing the issues of the inner city.

Architecture played a part in the dialogue on the Model Cities program and education, and discussion of urban schools highlighted a stark environment that was unwelcoming to students and needed extra fortification:

We have built schools behind barbed wire fences with armed guards watching the buildings as they went up. We have used as many as 200 policemen to open a high school and keep it open… Last week, we had four schools bombed. Two weeks ago, we had two schools bombed. Three weeks ago, we put 1,000 children on the street while an arsonist burned a school to the ground.18

Paul W. Briggs, then superintendent of the Cleveland public school system, noted

that “school design must also place great emphasis on flexibility and safety,” and that the

“school in the urban center must be the most accessible resource in the community

[emphasis added].”19 Here the conundrum of design was expressed in clear language that

could not predict the difficulties that the schools would face after construction. The

flexibility of the open plan and the safety of the Brutalist expression are the two main

points of contention amongst critics of the urban crisis school designs.

Washington already had an experimental “Model School Division” that combined

federal funding and local coordination operating in the Cardozo neighborhood. Cardozo

was slightly west of the Shaw neighborhood, which would be the site of the local Model

Cities project in the city. Whether the Model Cities program in Washington attempted to

respond to the methods of the Model School Division is unclear; however, the presence

of the two programs with significant federal funding within proximity to each other was

indicative of the serious nature of federal funding in the city. This illustrated the great

18 Roald F. Campbell, et al., Education and the Urban Renaissance, 1. 19 Paul W. Briggs, “Educational Programs and the Model Cities Program,” in Education and the Urban Renaissance, 32-33. 130

dependence Washington had (and still has) on unproven trial runs for social justice

programs.

The relationship between education and urban renewal (sometimes under the

aegis of the Model Cities program) was a way in which communities could harness the

public funds and the powers of eminent domain to benefit their neighborhoods. In each

of the cities, urban renewal plans of the late 1960s involved the creation of schools in

addition to housing. William Penn and University City high schools in Philadelphia,

Vine City High School (later renamed Frederick Douglass High School) in Atlanta, and

Shaw Junior High School in Washington were all prominent components of urban

renewal plans in their respective communities. The construction of these high schools

represented the distinct needs of the neighborhoods and was shaped by the organizational

groups that held most authority in the projects. University City High School was

constructed under the aegis of the West Philadelphia Corporation, a private organization that hoped to refashion the area around Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania as a leading science and technology center. Vine City High School operated under the authority of the Board of Education and city planning agencies, and was not locally controlled, hence the failure to keep the proposed high school in the Vine City neighborhood. Finally, Shaw Junior High’s design and siting were both closely tied to the Model Inner City Community Organization led by Walter Fauntroy. The process for construction of Shaw was locally based and neighborhood resident concerns were at the forefront of the design and construction considerations.

131

The Urban Renewal Neighborhood School

The schoolhouse in the cities of America is in a general condition of deterioration and decay. Ugly and ill-kept, it adds its forbidding shadow to the depressing environment of city neighborhoods. Its very age and condition contribute to the out-migration of people to the suburbs – with their bright new buildings and their light, air, and space. And the deficiencies of the urban schoolhouse add to the already large gap between the conditions of living and learning provided the suburban child and those available to the generally less privileged children of the city.20

Educational editor Terry Ferrer began her investigation into the relationship of

education and urban renewal with the dark imagery of the city that many urban reformers

used to promote the case for urban renewal. Her study, however, is much more specific and focused on a particular building type – the outdated schoolhouse. The relationship between urban renewal initiatives and school building construction is not a subject extensively covered in texts on postwar deindustrialization and suburbanization. These texts focus on grand civic and corporate ventures that involved cooperation between city chambers of commerce, businessmen, corporations, planners, architects, and government officials. These literary works cover the aspirations of architects like Louis Kahn who declared that “decentralization disperses and destroys the city…. the Center is the cathedral of the city.”21 The texts discuss the hope, inspiration, and the ultimate failure

of many large-scale plans in the civic sphere. There is little mention, however, of urban

renewal plans that promoted the construction and design of schools in majority black

neighborhoods that were marked as slums and scheduled for redevelopment.

Urban renewal was the most tangible agent of change in cities, though it was only one of numerous factors that contributed to major change in the cityscape. Other

20 Terry Ferrer, The Schools and Urban Renewal: A Case Study from New Haven (New York: Educational Facilities Laboratory, 1964), 2. 21 Louis Kahn, “Order in Architecture,” Perspecta 4 (1957): 61. 132

protagonists in the development of the urban landscape were emerging at the same time,

notably advocate planners as the Architects’ Renewal Committee in Harlem led by

Richard Hatch and Max Bond. Activists also created community design centers across

the country with site specific neighborhood goals in mind. The ideals of top-down urban

renewal enthusiasts and bottom up advocate planners were not often aligned. The friction was a result of the initial exclusion of residents in decisions made by government officials about their neighborhoods. Hatch declared that “it is becoming apparent that planning, urban renewal and social-service activities cannot be carried out at the scale necessary to rebuild our cities without the effective participation of a knowledgeable citizenry.” 22 He pushed to have neighborhood histories incorporated into curriculum for middle school aged students in New York City. Activism on behalf of the individual, however, did not shape the large-scale plans that ultimately led to the rejection of the urban renewal solution by the early 1970s.

Schools were considered proponents of renewal in needy downtown districts by

the early 1960s. In New York City the Educational Facilities Laboratories (EFL) urged the school board to consider the creation of schools that were the combination of public and private ventures. These school construction ventures also should include potential collaborations with the housing authority as well as trade unions.23 In further proposals

the EFL suggested that the school board rent out high-rise commercial and residential

space attached to the school building itself in order to eventually pay off the price for the

construction of the building.24

22 Richard Hatch, “Planning for Change: Towards Neighborhood Design and Urban Politics in the Public Schools,” Perspecta 12 (1969): 43. 23 Leonard Buder, “New Design Studied for City’s Schools,” New York Times, February 17, 1961, 18. 24 Leonard Buder, “‘School Renewal’ Downtown Urged,” New York Times, March 12, 1961, R8. 133

One of the earliest examples of the implementation of federal and local urban

renewal funds for the construction of a neighborhood school was the creation of the

Harry A. Conte School and Community Center in New Haven, Connecticut (1963). New

Haven’s overly ambitious and short-sighted urban renewal plans have been the topic of many texts and articles by urban and architectural scholars alike.25 The city underwent extensive demolition and construction under the direction of Mayor Richard C. Lee that drastically altered the way the city was experienced. The design of the Conte School was meant to revive the Wooster Square area of the city, once a working-class Italian neighborhood where numerous black families had settled after World War II. The Conte

School was a K-8 grade school with a decentralized suburban campus plan school. Its exterior was a concrete skeleton with glass walls “to give it stronger-looking exterior.”26

The school embraced the suburban spatial ideal while still meeting the defensive needs of

constructing a school in an urban environment.

Since Conte School was designed as a community school its purpose and

programming was manifold. Specifications from the New Haven Board of Education

stated that the school should provide education for children and adults, serve as a

recreation center for the neighborhood, provide social services, and become the center of

community life.27 In addition to those priorities was the expectation that the school

would attract more middle-class families back to the neighborhood. The urban renewal

25 See Mandi Isaacs Jackson, Model City Blues: Urban Space and Organized Resistance in New Haven (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008); Robert M. Fogelson, Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880- 1950 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001): Douglas W. Rae, City: Urbanism and Its End (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); Phillip Allan Singerman, “Politics, Bureaucracy and Public Policy: The Case of Urban Renewal in New Haven,” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1980); John P. Elwood, “Rethinking Government Participation in Urban Renewal: Neighborhood Revitalization in New Haven,” Yale Law & Policy Review 12, no. 1 (1994): 138-183. 26 “A City School Gives a Lift to City Renewal,” Architectural Forum (November 1963): 98. 27 Ibid., 97. 134

plan for Wooster Square included not only the addition of the community school, but also

housing to replace many of the aged wood-frame buildings in the area. This two-pronged effort was expected to be the lifeline for a neighborhood defined by the city as a “slum.”

The final purpose of the school was to act as a monument and source of pride for the community and city as a whole. Mayor Lee contacted Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill after being impressed by their design for the Connecticut General Headquarters, and convinced the firm to take the job to design the school.28

West Philadelphia University City High School was planned as part of the

University City urban renewal project that was a collaboration between the West

Philadelphia Corporation (WPC) and the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (Figure

42). The WPC was organized in 1959 by the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel Institute

of Technology, Presbyterian Hospital, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science,

and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathy.29 The WPC counted among its goals for the

University City development “to strengthen the economic base,” which included

“enhancement of residential areas” and “preservation and attraction of educational,

cultural, and medical institutions.”30 The West Philadelphia Corporation looked to

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s technological

clusters for inspiration in the renewal plans with the University of Pennsylvania and

28 Ibid., 98. 29 West Philadelphia Corporation, First Annual Report 1960-1961, 4, Accession 350 Series 1: Administration, Box 1, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 30 Suggested Remarks: Groundbreaking Ceremonies for the West Philadelphia - University City High School, 1, Accession 350 Series 6: Public Education, Box 22, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 135

Drexel, because of the similar relationships in proximity, scope of research, and potential

for collaboration.31

The Philadelphia School Board supported the use of urban renewal planning

techniques to accomplish the goal of building a new high school in the neighborhood.

The board’s Task Force on Capital Program and Physical Plant emphasized the need for

the school board and local government to view school building plans in relation to urban

renewal programming in a report to school board head Richardson Dilworth. The main

point was the economic benefit to acquiring land with federal power and funding. The

task force was particularly interested in a new regulation of the Urban Renewal

Administration that would credit local attempts at eliminating de facto segregation through urban renewal projects. The board intended to achieve these credits by pulling

students from outside the proposed boundary areas of the school and urban renewal

project.32 The promise of a magnet curriculum would be a tool towards increased federal funding, despite the local community opposition to the idea.

The mission and purpose of University City High was controversial, and

throughout the development process the school was initially advertised to the

neighborhood as a specialized math and science magnet high school. Later it was conceived as a much needed “neighborhood school” with a lesser focus on specialized curriculum. However, many of the low-to-moderate-income minority families in the

University City Renewal Area were distrustful of the West Philadelphia Corporation’s

31 West Philadelphia Corporation, University City: The Next Three Years, October 1961, 3, Accession 350 Series 1: Administration, Box 1, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 32 Philadelphia Board of Education, Report of Task Force on Capital Program and Physical Plant to Richardson Dilworth, November 8, 1965, 11-12, Accession 350 Series 9: Organizations, Box 28, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 136

proposed intentions, and argued that the redevelopment and specialized school was meant

to serve only children of the faculty.33 In an effort to mitigate the perception that the

Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania were joining together in a private attempt to

gentrify the neighborhood, the first annual report declared that “the institutions do not …

wish to create a single-class community, sterilized of all cultural, ethnic, and racial

differences that make urban society dynamic. Rather, they want an environment in which

all 100,000 residents of University City will find a more desirable standard of social

utility and stability as well as of civic beauty, public health, and public safety.”34 The

WPC was cognizant of the public relations challenges it faced within its community. The

WPC paid lip service to the idea that its aims were in line with the needs of the

community, and that it would provide an atmosphere and services that were needed by all

inhabitants of West Philadelphia. However, studies conducted by the University of

Pennsylvania for future development in University City painted a very different picture of

target racial and social class demographics for the neighborhood improvements.35

Early involvement of the WPC with the education sector in Philadelphia consisted

of in-school and after-school programs, as well as community conferences on improving public education.36 The Universities-Related Public Schools Program, founded by the

WPC, was a partnership between University City public schools and the corporation.

The educational institutions involved in the WPC supplied the educational capital in the form of persons who would coordinate and volunteer for the programs, and utilize

33 “Group Charges Bias in Redevelopment Project,” Evening Bulletin, December 1, 1965. 34 Ibid. 35 See University of Pennsylvania Graduate Department of City Planning, Renewal of University City: Studies of Supply, Demand Faculty Housing, and Residential Rehabilitation, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1961). 36 West Philadelphia Corporation, Tenth Annual Report: … A Decade of Progress ... to a Decade of Challenge 1969-1970, 8-9, Accession 350 Series 1: Administration, Box 1, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 137

existing institutional resources to engage the student body. Later involvement of the

WPC in public education was the design, construction, and curricular programming of

University City High School. This physical and permanent fixture in public education was, like earlier experiments in New Haven, an attempt to stabilize the rapidly changing demographics of the neighborhood by offering educational and cultural capital to entice middle-class families to live in the University City area.

University City High was the center of conflict for the neighboring community, mainly because of the demolition of several residential properties through eminent domain and the programmatic specialization of the school as a science and math magnet school.37 The WPC initially proposed that the school would utilize resources at the

planned University City Science Center, another part of the urban renewal project for the

area. Opponents in the neighborhood believed the siting would not only dislocate many

neighborhood residents, but it would detract from the possibility of integration.38

Neighborhood activists enlisted the assistance of the local chapter of the Congress of

Racial Equality (CORE) to fight the plans for the school, which was characterized by the

head of the local CORE chapter as “an effort of the white power structure to move poor

people – especially black ones – around as they wish.”39

Other opponents, such as Helen Oakes chairman of the West Philadelphia Schools

Committee believed that the magnet school curriculum was created to benefit white

students from across the city and not the black students in the immediate neighborhood

37 Suggested Remarks: Groundbreaking Ceremonies for the West Philadelphia - University City High School, 2-3. 38 “Group Renews School Protest in West Phila.,” Evening Bulletin, September 23, 1966, B31. 39 “CORE Warns It Will Fight Plans For University City Science School,” Evening Bulletin, October 12, 1966. 138

who would not meet the high admission standards.40 Many residents believed that

University City was created to attract professors and staff with families who were

affiliated with the universities to relocate to the neighborhood.41 This conflict was clear

in the battle regarding program and curriculum that would determine whether or not the

school would be a neighborhood school or a magnet school. 42 By the end of 1968 the

WPC decided that the school would perform both functions, drawing 75% of its student

body from the West Philadelphia area, and the remaining 25% from other parts of the city

and suburbs for the magnet school curriculum.43 This compromise helped appease

neighborhood residents as well as WPC officials, both of whom gained from the

projected mixed student body at the school.

In the early 1960s, when the Vine City Urban Renewal Area was proposed in

Atlanta, one of the major components of the plan was the creation of Vine City High

School. The Vine City Improvement Association (later regrouped as the Vine City

Council) founded by white Quaker and Harvard graduate Hector Black, was cited as a

rare example of organized citizen participation in Atlanta education.44 The foundation

provided after-school programs, medical clinics, a cooperative grocery store, and other

40 John T. Gillespie, “Science High School Set for 36th and Filbert Sts.,” Evening Bulletin, October 24, 1967; “Board Urged to Press Plans for University City School,” Evening Bulletin, October 4, 1966. 41 “CORE Warns It Will Fight Plans For University City Science School.” 42 See John T. Gillespie, “New School Shy on Plans for Science, C of C Charges,” Evening Bulletin, November 23, 1967; John T. Gillespie, “Science Building Proposed on School’s Parking Lot,” Evening Bulletin, December 19, 1967; “New High School Started in University City Area,” Evening Bulletin, October 1, 1968. 43 Minutes of the West Philadelphia Corporation Board of Directors Quarterly Meeting, December 12, 1968: 4, Accession 701 Series 1: Administrative, Box 4, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University. 44 Reese Cleghorn, “The Haunters and the Haunted,” Atlanta Magazine (July 1967): 98. 139

community services. However, one critic stated that while the group worked to provide

services to the community, it did not attempt to directly change school policy.45

The power dynamic in Atlanta as it related to urban renewal and the black

community is highlighted in the relocation of the proposed Vine City High School to the

more established middle- and upper middle- class neighborhood of Collier Heights. Vine

City, one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Atlanta, lost a bid for an urban renewal plan that included a new high school due to the political and social capital of the black community in Northwest Atlanta.

From the outside, popular depictions of areas slated for urban renewal emphasized

their derelict condition without portraying the humanity that dwelled within. The Vine

City neighborhood in Atlanta was rendered in the general city psyche as a dusty and

backward rural enclave in an otherwise modernizing city. The imagery of the editorials

and the photographs published of “slum” neighborhoods were substitutes for the actual

experience of the neighborhoods. Many people who read about or saw the pictures had not ventured into the neighborhoods themselves. Historian Virginia Hein noted in 1972 that “most white Atlantans had never heard of the mid-city neighborhoods known as

‘Lightning,’ ‘Blue Heaven,’ or ‘Cabbage Town.’ But they had heard of, without ever seeing, ‘Summer Hill,’ ‘Vine City,’ and ‘Dixie Hills.’46 The power of reputation worked

to the detriment of many neighborhoods characterized as slums. A 1960 Atlanta Daily

World editorial on the Vine City neighborhood characterized its physical aspects and

residents:

45 Arliss L. Roaden, “Citizen Participation in School Affairs in Two Southern Cities,” in “What Do All Those People Want?” special issue, Theory into Practice 8, no. 4 (October 1969): 255-260. 46 Virginia H. Hein, “The Image of ‘A City Too Busy to Hate:’ Atlanta in the 1960's,” Phylon 33, no. 3 (3rd Quarter 1972): 215. 140

The little shot-gun quarters, with store fronts, bound up by slab-porches and fortified stacks of old barrels and kegs, much resembles the Atlanta of the early [18]90’s. In fact some of these slum dwellings have been occupied around ‘Vine City’ for fully a century, and squatting in their mud-sunken fly-flitting valleys they still imprison the young broads of those who swarm into the slum region of the city from rural sections to take up quarters in already crowded homes of relatives or acquaintances who manage to exist here.47

The negative characterization of Vine City continued well into the late 1960s as urban

renewal ran through the city like wildfire. A 1967 article in the Atlanta Magazine carried

a strong paternalistic tone reminiscent of many sociological studies that focused on

“slum” areas. Children were characterized as parentless “ghosts” roaming labyrinthine

squalid conditions in Vine City and its adjacent, smaller neighbor, a community named

Lightning (Figure 43).48 The author, Reese Cleghorn, one of the few loud and passionate

white male voices in the South on issues of civil rights in the 1960s, suggested the

solution for problems associated with the neighborhood could possibly found in

education, an argument that he related back to the theories of Horace Mann.49

The proposed Vine City High School to be constructed with urban renewal funds

would have addressed community needs; however, the neighborhood lost the school to

Collier Heights. Historian Irene Holliman called Vine City “the neighborhood that

renewal forgot,” a characterization that reflected the lack of authority the residents had in

47 “The Slums Will Still Be Around For Some Time,” Atlanta Daily World, March 30, 1960, 4. 48 Cleghorn, “The Haunters and the Haunted,” 34. 49 Ibid., 98. Commentary on Cleghorn’s singular liberal journalistic voice on civil rights can be found at Frederick N. Rasmussen, “Reese Cleghorn: Former UM Journalism Dean, Teacher and Editor Was a Progressive Columnist During Civil Rights Era,” Baltimore Sun, March 17, 2009 http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-03-17/news/0903160082_1_journalism-associate-editor-reese (accessed January 11, 2010); and Nafeesa Syeed, “Reese Cleghorn, Former Dean -- and Editor -- Dies at 78” Editor & Publisher, March 16, 2009. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003952023 (accessed January 11, 2010). 141

the urban renewal process to advocate for things they needed, such as the high school.50

Coincidentally, critics have described the Atlanta Model Cities project as less effective

than other cases because of class-based issues.51 The few middle-class blacks the leading

effort did not fully engage poor blacks in the target area, and as a result demonstrative sit- ins were held at the offices of the Model Cities program in Atlanta to create increased citizen participation across class levels in urban redevelopment projects.

The Summerhill neighborhood slated for early urban renewal was portrayed in a

more positive manner in contrast to characterizations of Vine City as a dusty anomaly in

the modernizing Atlanta. Stanley Scott, reporter for the African American newspaper

Atlanta Daily World described Summerhill as the “starting place for most of the city’s

pioneer citizens of the Negro race,” including businessmen, school administrators, and

clergy.52 While Scott did not deny the substandard building stock in the neighborhood he

emphasized that talent, skill, worth, and potential for growth were not traits that were

dependent upon where one lived. Scott gave depth to an area classified as a slum by

reminding the public of the humane characteristics of the neighborhood and the people

who resided in it.

Early patterns of housing discrimination that created these neighborhoods added

to the devastating impact of commercially focused urban renewal plans because “except

for the partially developed Westside (some of which fell beyond the pre-annexation city limits), Atlanta’s black population was largely locked into older areas around the

50 Irene V. Holliman, “From Crackertown to Model City? Urban Renewal and Community Building in Atlanta, 1963–1966,” Journal of Urban History 35 no. 3 (March 2009): 378. 51 Ricardo A. Millett, Examination of “Widespread Citizen Participation” in the Model Cities Program and the Demands of Ethnic Minorities for a Greater Decision Making Role in American Cities (San Francisco: R & E Research Associates, 1977), 101-102. 52 Stanley S. Scott, “Implication of Urban Renewal,” Atlanta Daily World, March 5, 1963, 1. 142

business district.”53 Buttermilk Bottom, as the name suggests, was a geographic lowland

that was subject to flooding that worsened, according to many residents, once the urban

renewal construction began and significantly altered the terrain.54 Flooding in 1963 was

so treacherous that numerous residents had to be relocated, all the while aiding urban

renewal efforts to clear the neighborhood.55 The Atlanta Civic Center and its parking lot

replaced the community.

Despite the overwhelming negative depictions of the Atlanta neighborhoods

slated for urban renewal projects, there were counterpoints that spoke to autonomous

neighborhoods that created a sense of community in the face of segregation and housing

restrictions (Figure 44). Artist James Malone, a former Buttermilk Bottom resident,

recalled that:

When we were kids, we had our own corner stores … We had our own schools, barbershops and churches. Our neighborhood was isolated and considered the bottom of Atlanta – the low lands, like a waste fill. …We didn’t have radios, telephones or electric lights. We didn’t have locks on our doors either - not that we could afford them or had anything worth stealing. We were a poor community, but we didn’t know we were poor. We were one big family that lived and played in our own neighborhood and we were happy.56

Malone’s description, decades after the demolition of the neighborhood, was nostalgic

and somewhat forlorn. These sentiments were representative of many communities that

were displaced in urban renewal projects of the 1950s and 1960s.

53 Bayor, Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta, 32. 54 Harmon G. Perry, “Flood Victims Getting Help,” Atlanta Daily World, May 29, 1963, 1; Harmon G Perry, “First ‘Buttermilk Bottom’ Flood Victims Are Moved,” Atlanta Daily World, July 27, 1963, 1. 55 Ibid. 56 Dolores Bundy, “Buttermilk Bottom is Gone But Not Forgotten,” Washington Informer December 7, 2006 http://www.washingtoninformer.com/NATButtermilkBottom2006Dec7.html (accessed March 18, 2010). 143

Dexter Scott King, son of Martin Luther King, Jr., painted similar depictions of his childhood community, Vine City, in his book Growing Up King: An Intimate

Memoir:

This area in northwest Atlanta known as Vine City got its name from the heavy kudzu vines that grew all over the place; Vine City was a ‘Negro’ enclave, in the era of segregation into which we were born … That apartment building over there? Former Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson's family had lived there. Next door were Reverend and Mrs. Hall and their children…. Julian Bond's family lived next to the Martins. We grew up with his kids, Phyllis, Michael, Cookie, Jeffrey, and Horace Mann Bond III…57

King was clear on the associations he made with the history of black Atlanta and its intimacy to Vine City. Like the Atlanta Daily World article by Stanley Scott, King’s recollections emphasized the strength and bond of community by recalling former residents by name. At the same time he illustrated the presence of black pioneers in the neighborhood.

King and Malone painted a starkly different picture of the Buttermilk Bottom and

Vine City neighborhoods of Atlanta than the popular depictions of slums. This picture was tied to place, self-sufficiency, cultural, social, and educational institutions, and familial bonds. These viewpoints are imperative to understanding the power dynamics in the city, as well as the devastation caused by urban renewal displacement. It was the loss of an established community in the name of reform.

The inclusion of Shaw Junior High School in the urban renewal plan for the riot- damaged neighborhood in Washington sent a public message to neighborhood residents that urban renewal truly was for them. Unlike Vine City, lower-income residents in

Shaw had the benefit of middle- and upper-middle class blacks to advocate on their behalf for the inclusion of the school construction in the renewal plan. Legislators made

57 Dexter Scott King, Growing Up King: An Intimate Memoir (New York: IPM, 2003), 9-10. 144

sure that urban renewal powers of eminent domain and federal funding would be used in

the construction of the new school, with community input.58 The $13 million project was

the city’s first open-plan design for a secondary school. It contrasted significantly with

its predecessor, nicknamed “Shameful Shaw,” because of its derelict condition.59 The

old school plant was under consideration for reuse as housing for low- and moderate-

income families and the elderly. This brought the purpose and use of the two structures

full circle to responding to community needs.60

The marked change in urban renewal planning in the 1960s and 1970s was

characterized by planners paying greater lip service to the local needs of communities

and neighborhood and community activists becoming more involved in the planning

process. This was a direct result of the failure of early urban renewal projects and the

vocalized opposition to “Negro Removal.” The riots of the mid-to-late 1960s also deeply influenced the work done in city redevelopment, and city planners and administrators were left no choice but to respond to the previously unheard and unmet needs of those whose neighborhoods were destroyed. The neighborhood-conscious renewal plans in

Atlanta and Washington addressed housing issues head on as the primary focus on renewal, largely because of advocacy groups such as U-Rescue in Atlanta and the Model

Inner City Community Organization in Washington. Philadelphia and Washington had added incentive to redevelop their inner cores and re-establish both a sense of historicity

58 Jack Eisen, “Plans Board Refuses to Endorse Bundy Site for New Shaw School,” Washington Post, June 11, 1966, B2. 59 Courtland Milloy, “$13 Million Junior High Replaces ‘Shameful’ Shaw,” Washington Post, September 5, 1977, C1. 60 LaBarbara Bowman, “School Buildings May be Recycled for Use as Housing,” Washington Post, May 12, 1977, 116. 145

and innovation as the approaching national bicentennial of 1976 guaranteed both cities

increased tourist dollars.61

Fifteen years after the Southwest Urban Renewal project, the nation’s capital was

experimenting with a new approach to city planning in the Shaw Urban Renewal

Development Area that included the construction of Shaw Junior High as a selling point

for implementation of the plan. The Shaw Urban Renewal Development Area was

created under the Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) like the Southwest Urban

Renewal project; however, the aims, methods, and outcomes of the two projects were

starkly different. This was a result of Walter Fauntroy’s initial involvement with the

project in the mid-1960s. Fauntroy was the pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in

Shaw, and he was interested in how his church and other groups could be involved in

creating new and rehabilitated low-rent housing in his neighborhood.62 Fauntroy

presented his idea in embryo to John Duncan, the first black commissioner of

Washington in 1966, who connected Fauntroy with Walter Washington, then head of the

Housing Authority. Washington was the driving force that brought together Fauntroy as

a representative of the neighborhood and Thomas Appleby, the head of the RLA. This

partnership would grow and expand as the plan for redevelopment in Shaw was

underway.63

The face of urban renewal changed with the increase in urban unrest in center

cities across the nation. In Washington, one of the hardest hit cities in the April 1968

61 One New York Times article stated that Philadelphia expected 2.5 million tourists in 1975, and 10 million in 1976. The Society Hill urban redevelopment area was also a focal point of architectural tours of the historic architecture in the city. See Shirley Milgrim, “A Day to Rejoice In Philly,” New York Times, May 11, 1975, XX1. 62 Howard W. Hallman, Neighborhood Control of Public Programs: Case Studies of Community Corporations and Neighborhood Boards (New York: Praeger, 1970), 177. 63 Ibid., 178. 146

riots that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the situation and

outlook were particularly bleak. Devastation was widespread – the estimated cost of

damage to real estate was around $24.8 million, and 1,352 businesses experienced damage or theft (Figures 45-46).64 The RLA stated that “the initial objective in these

areas is to remove the vacant and damaged structures which mar these neighborhoods and

to replace them with new housing, schools, parks, and other community facilities, such

planning and action to be taken with the full participation of citizens and community

groups.”65

The impact of the riots that devastated Shaw and Columbia Heights in northwest

Washington, as well as the H Street corridor in the northeast quadrant and the growing

Black Power sentiment amongst members of the African American community added to

the diversity of the plan. Black architects and planners were consulted in this project, and

black non-profit and cultural anchors in the community played a central role in the

development of the Shaw Urban Renewal plan. Howard University trained African

American architects had established an influential community centered near the Shaw

neighborhood, and formed a coalition with a particularly strong voice in matters

concerning urban renewal. These community representatives wanted to actively

participate in rebuilding their neighborhoods.66 Less than two years after the riots of

1968, numerous plans were underway for Shaw that utilized the intellectual, social,

political, and cultural capital of community residents.

64 Claudia Levy, “April Riot Caused 4900 Workers To Lose Jobs, New Survey Says,” Washington Post, May 9, 1969, C8. 65 District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency, Annual Report 1970, iii, Accession 93-008-2 Series 2: Annual Reports, Box 2, District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency Papers, District of Columbia Archives. 66 See Melvin L. Mitchell, The Crisis of the African American Architect: Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and (Black) Power (New York: Writers Advantage iUniverse, 2003). 147

Fauntroy and a coalition of professional, business, and church leaders from Shaw

formed the Model Inner City Community Organization (MICCO), which was the

organizational body for coordinated community involvement with the urban renewal project. MICCO was a powerful force in determining the direction of the Shaw Urban

Renewal Area project, and became “the first citizens’ group ever funded by the federal government to take part in determining the destiny of a neighborhood.”67 MICCO’s

involvement in the Shaw program was what urban political historian Howard W.

Hallman called “equal-bargaining planning.” Hallman noted, unlike other planning

initiatives where communities were involved, the Washington/Shaw example exhibited

that the community had “political influence and independent professional competence –

in other words, power and knowledge.”68

Community-based non-profit sponsorship of urban renewal projects centered on

housing developments along the Seventh Street corridor in Shaw, and was mainly the

work of church groups. The first of these projects built were the Lincoln-Westmoreland

Apartments sponsored by the Lincoln Memorial Congregational Temple, located in

Shaw, and the suburban Westmoreland Congregational Church of Montgomery County,

Maryland.69 Subsequent projects were Gibson Plaza, sponsored by the First Rising

Mount Zion Baptist Church; Foster House sponsored by the New Bethel Baptist Church; a 137-unit complex sponsored by the Immaculate Conception Community Development

Corporation; and the 114-unit high-rise Daniel Payne Manor sponsored by the Second

67 Eugene L. Meyer and J.Y. Smith, “Shaw: Blight Remains Despite Promises,” Washington Post, February 20, 1972, A1, D1. 68 Hallman, Neighborhood Control of Public Programs, 176. 69 District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency, Annual Report 1970, 4. 148

Episcopal District of the African Method Episcopal Church.70 These projects were the result of the Section 236 program of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 that encouraged private developers to create low-income housing by subsidizing mortgage interest rates.

This new-found source of authority changed the nature and dynamic of urban renewal programs drastically in Washington by providing a direct link between community anchors and public housing projects. The community was directly investing in its urban renewal; however, many of the projects would later fall victim to some of the same issues plagued other public housing projects.

The effectiveness of MICCO is at the forefront of success stories dealing with cultural and political empowerment of African American communities in planning for renewal in their neighborhoods. The concentration of social and political capital and professional skills held by the organization’s administrators was at the heart of this success. Washington was unique because it was home to the largest concentration of

African American professionals in the country, including those well versed in architecture and planning.

Many of the architects that worked on large residential projects in the Seventh

Street corridor of Shaw were black firms that teamed up with non-profits started by churches that partially funded the projects. The firm of Bryant & Bryant worked on numerous projects, both residential and educational. These include the D.C. Frontiers

International Incorporated project that included 54 townhouses on four sites. It was intended to be purchased by the National Capital Housing Authority. Bryant & Bryant was also involved with the project sponsored by Immaculate Conception Community

70 Ibid., 6. 149

Development Corporation.71 Their most influential and controversial project, however, would be the design and construction of the open-plan, high-rise Dunbar High School, a project which was initially assigned to a white architecture firm.

A cause of the mobilization for urban redevelopment in Philadelphia and

Washington was the bicentennial celebration of 1976. Both cities had plans for multiple large-scale celebrations, and anticipated record numbers of tourists to visit and aid in the

local economy of the cities. This momentous event caused both alarm and anxiety on one

hand, and a renewed sense of purpose on the other. A 1974 Washington Post article documented the progress of rebuilding the riot-stricken Seventh and Fourteenth street

corridors in Northwest Washington. The article stated that while the Seventh Street

corridor looked worse than other areas of Washington devastated by the 1968 riots, the

work completed by the RLA in the neighborhood had advanced recovery in that area

more than others.72 A testament to the power and significance of the church-based

projects that were developed in conjunction with MICCO and the RLA, the article noted

that the Immaculate Conception and Gibson Plaza apartment buildings were the “most

visible signs of reconstruction in any of the riot corridors.”73 These projects “loom[ed]

up in isolated splendor among the vacant lots that surround[ed] them.”74 It appeared that, in the heart of destruction, the work done by the local community in conjunction with the

RLA was a success.

Public school development in urban renewal plans such as University City, Vine

City, and Shaw was a facet that differed greatly from earlier urban renewal projects. The

71 Ibid. 72 Thomas W. Lippman, “City's Core Still in Ruins,” Washington Post, April 4, 1974, C1. 73 Ibid., C16. 74 Ibid. 150 motivation to include public schools in each of these projects was varied, and each garnered different results. Vine City High School moved from its initial proposed location in an urban renewal zone and was transformed into Douglass High School in a moderate-and upper-income, self-established black neighborhood with more political clout than Vine City. University City High School was initially created as a magnet school instead of a neighborhood school that was a thinly-veiled attempt to attracting families with connections to the Penn and Drexel to the neighborhood. These projects all harken back to the early New Haven urban renewal in the Wooster Square neighborhood with the construction of the Harry A. Conte School and Community Center. The idea behind the Wooster Square renewal project was that “planning with the residents was substituted for planning for them … schools began to assume a dominant role, not only in

Wooster Square plans, but in the Dixwell and State Street projects as well.”75 The role of public schools in urban renewal plans was greatly expanded in the mid- to late- 1960s as communities began to hold urban renewal agencies to a higher level of accountability.

Graham S. Finney, former chair of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission stated almost 30 years after the major early urban renewal plans in the city that the health of public schools and planning initiatives rarely were considered together:

The planning of the city's public school system, for which I assumed a major responsibility at the start of this period, offers an interesting case in point. Though it may sound preposterous now, until then little connection had been made between the city's rebirth and the quality of its schools. The City's Comprehensive Plan of 1960 had paid no heed to education, not even taking cognizance of the sizable land holdings of a school district under heavy pressure to serve a rapidly growing population of pupils, ever-increasing percentages of whom were poor and black.76

75 Ferrer, The Schools and Urban Renewal, 6. 76 Graham S. Finney, “Essay: The Architect's Role,” Perspecta 29 (1998): 63-64. 151

Finney contended that the major dilemmas that occurred as a result of this short- sightedness included a lack of funding for educational construction, as well as a dearth in adequate sites to accommodate new school construction. Additionally, Finney bemoaned the restrictions put on architects to design in situations where “decisions about the site, program, and budget had already been made.”77 He believed that the role of the architect in the general planning process was too restrictive and did not allow for optimum collaboration between all parties involved.

Finney argued that the authority of economy and politics to subsume the priorities of city and regional planning needed to be re-examined if cities were to function equitably while maintaining their vitality. This brings the investigation of urban renewal full circle to Robert Weaver’s assertion that issues of race, class, and urban renewal were intimately tied to concerns of the metropolitan area. Urban renewal was a method of improving downtown commercial district of cities to be attractive to suburban dwellers.

It also aimed to stabilize the middle- and upper-class populations that were leaving older industrialized cities in droves.

The focus on economy and politics, the neglect inflicted upon impoverished communities, and increasing pressure on city officials led to the evolution of urban renewal. It became a tool for political and cultural empowerment in moderately disenfranchised African American neighborhoods in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

School construction became a focal point for many African American neighborhoods that sought to redefine urban renewal in their own terms.

The power dynamics of Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington evolved on the local and state levels, aided by federal programs that worked to encourage citizen

77 Ibid., 64. 152

participation in redefining the nature of city living. Considerable gains in political representation and collaboration with community activist groups emphasized empowerment from the top down as well as on the grassroots level. The advent of urban riots and the schism between Black Nationalist and Civil Rights sentiments complicated the issue of political empowerment and authority over urban spaces. The federal government’s response to unemployment, concentrated poverty, failing schools and the need for a more localized approach to urban redevelopment was through the administration of the Model Cities program. Model Cities created a unique situation in which all the stakeholders could actively influence urban renewal plans to the benefit of their neighborhood. Schools became a key component of redevelopment plans.

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Chapter Four

Worthy of Consideration? Challenges to the Preservation of Recent Past

Educational Architecture

The relationship between African American communities and historic preservation has been a tenuous one, causing the physical presence of African American history to diminish within the urban fabric of cities across the country. Desegregation rendered many cultural sites, particularly formerly all-black schools, obsolete. Subpar construction of a number of buildings on these sites made them susceptible to quicker deterioration, while urban renewal in cities destroyed houses, schools, churches, and community centers. Although there was backlash against these changes in black communities, preservation efforts were piecemeal and focused on major national figures and narratives such as the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights

Movement. Even in cities such as Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington, where stable and relatively significant black communities had existed for over a century, the work to

preserve spaces of cultural impact was stagnant until the 1990s. Groundbreaking

initiatives at the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Park Service

expanded conceptual frameworks for designating sites of particular worth to African

American history in the United States. This effort continues as local activists cultivate narratives of their specific sites of importance that embrace the intricacies of local culture while reflecting or negating larger trends in the nation’s history.

Preservation in African American communities faces a unique set of challenges that include a lack of resources and information, as well as a stigma about class

154 distinctions. Early efforts in historic preservation grew out of genealogical and patriotic efforts of upper class Boston Brahmins such as William Sumner Appleton’s founding of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities and the Mount Vernon

Ladies’ Association’s restoration of George Washington’s Virginia home.1 These developments were spurred by an interest in the history of the founding fathers and establishing a grand narrative about the history of the United States. These efforts were the re-imagining and realigning of a historical past to create a more meaningful present.

A more populist vision for preservation was born out the destruction of many city centers through the advent of urban renewal. The 1963 demolition of Pennsylvania Station in

New York City is considered the impetus for the present day preservation movement that emphasizes a sense of place and local cultural histories. A few years later, the National

Historic Preservation Act of 1966 established state historic preservation offices, the

National Register of Historic Places, as well as the Section 106 review process, which is intended to set a standard for the protection of historic properties potentially affected by federally funded design projects. The preservation movement became increasingly more localized and populist in perspective; however, the canonical hierarchy of history was upheld on the state level and would take decades to highlight the cultural heritage of ethnic minorities and the working class.2

Despite these gains and major legislation to solidify preservation as an important ideological concept in the public and private sectors, the stigma and misconception of

1 For more information on the evolution of historic preservation in the U.S. see Max Page and Randall Mason, eds., Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States (New York: Routledge, 2004). 2 Dolores Hayden’s The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995) speaks directly to the importance of recognizing the varied layers of history within the built environment that mark the lesser heard stories of underrepresented minorities through conservation and public history. 155

preservation as the inevitable harbinger of gentrification is one of the major reasons that

preservation has not been accepted as a positive trend in African American communities.

Historic designation efforts largely depend upon neighborhood residents rallying for their neighborhood, and this type of advocacy breaks down significantly along race and class lines. Urban geographer Robin Datel has discussed gentrification and dislocation issues

in terms of both psychological and economic impact. Black neighborhoods rich in

cultural resources and local history have often fought local and national historic

designation because of the association with increased property taxes and demographic turnover. As Datel explained, fear of dislocation kept low-income Latino residents in

Philadelphia and middle- to low-income African American residents in Alexandria,

Virginia, from seeking historic designation. The case studies she highlighted are in no sense unique or isolated.3

Gentrification and dislocation are directly tied to the relationship that preservation

has developed with the market economy. Some critics have argued that preservation is

an anti-progress movement that slows down the natural evolution of creative destruction in the urban landscape. Others have argued that it often becomes a thematic anchor for the renaissance of a marketable re-imagined past, one that foregoes authenticity in the name of capitalism.4 This has been described as the “Disneyfication” of place, in which

multiple histories are compounded to produce an appealing narrative that depends on

nostalgia and leans slightly towards folklore in the name of tourism. The narrative also

3 See Robin Elisabeth Datel, “Preservation and a Sense of Orientation for American Cities,” Geographical Review, 75.2 (1985): 125-141, 137-139. 4 See Mike Wallace, Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996) and Martha K. Norkunas, The Politics of Public Memory: Tourism, History, and Ethnicity in Monterey, California (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993). 156 allows for the expansion of a marketable destination complex that offers quaint neighborhoods, trendy restaurants, and high end shopping centers.

Preservation of African American cultural heritage must combat these tendencies and focus on the multiplicity of history present in the built environment that has long suppressed African American narratives. It necessitates the empowerment of community through historically accurate heritage narratives that have the potential to create cultural and economic capital. Preservation of African American cultural heritage, however, also forces the acknowledgment of a past that is rife with inequity and unrest, segregation, and a duality of existence within the public sphere. Many people are averse to being confronted with these realities and argue against the reminders of a hurtful and traumatic past. Conversely, the argument could be made that the safeguarding of formerly segregated spaces and places of conflict enrich a national cultural heritage and reflect a determination to succeed despite the oppressive nature of the pre-Civil Rights era.

The rise in awareness for the need to preserve remnants of African American educational history has aided in a systemic methodology of categorization for vernacular structures of African American heritage. This awareness is evidenced in the growing interest in the Rosenwald schools of the South and schools associated with Brown v.

Board of Education. Though the interest in Rosenwald schools has increased, many other African American educational facilities that were abandoned after desegregation were demolished, converted into primary or secondary schools (as was the case with

Harper High School being converted to Harper-Archer Middle School in Atlanta), or even turned into lofts and condominiums. These developments for former African

American educational facilities shed light on the loss of identity that is felt with the loss

157

of a school building in a community, the relationship (or lack thereof) of the African

American community to the historic preservation movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and

the resulting implications for present-day preservation efforts.

How do these gains with Rosenwald schools and Brown v. Board of Education

buildings affect the nature of African American cultural heritage today, specifically as it

relates to the school sites examined in this study? Change over time has detrimentally

affected the fate of these urban crisis schools through shifting educational policy, neighborhood turnover and/or decline, and aging building stock. Woodson High School in Washington, also known as the “Tower of Power,” succumbed to the wrecking ball in

2008 to be replaced by a design on a different site that would be more inviting and open.

William Penn High School on Broad Street in Philadelphia was threatened with closure in 2009 before community activists rallied to keep the school open. Schools play an integral part in anchoring a community, when they are lost a facet of the connectivity between people and place is lost as well.

The conflict surrounding the demolition of the 1916 Dunbar High School in the early 1970s is a key example of the difficulties facing African American cultural heritage preservation. In the Dunbar case study the groundwork is laid for a class-based argument about the meaning of preservation in the African American community, an issue that is striking in this example because Dunbar was the first public high school established for

African Americans in the United States. The impressive history of the school played a substantial role in the battle to save the 1916 building. Although it was not the first building that Dunbar occupied, it was the second in the school’s history built for the singular purpose of educating students, and housed the school for the longest period.

158

Dunbar High School: School Grounds Turned Battleground for Preservation

To us, tearing down Dunbar High School is like somebody trying to tear down the Washington Monument or the Capitol…5 Dr. Henry S. Robinson, D.C. City Council Member, 1974

What a paradox and contradiction it would be today, if on the projected Bicentennial tours of historic sites in Washington dealing with black history, a visitor would ask, “Where is the Dunbar High School,” and be told, “Oh! That’s been torn down at the urging of Afro-Americans themselves, the modern Afro- American really does not care anything about his history.”6 W. Montague Cobb, NAACP National President, 1976

I don’t know how people can sit down and talk about preserving mortar and brick when the needs of the students are staring them in the face.7 Phyllis R. Beckwith, Principal, Dunbar High School, 1977

For three years in the mid-1970s a highly contested and public debate, centered on the decision to demolish the building that formerly housed Dunbar High School, transpired in Washington. Advocates for demolition, including the school’s administration and many city officials, were adamant that they had the students’ best interest in mind. They argued that demolition was a response to student needs. In lieu of a worn-down and abandoned structure on their school grounds, students would possess for the first time a home football field, which was a much-needed attribute as their athletics program was garnering nationwide recognition. Demolition opponents, comprised of preservationists, local historians, and many alumni, countered that keeping the historic Dunbar High School would benefit students by providing them with a rich physical reminder of the history of their school, an example of black academic excellence during segregation.

5 Martin Weil, “Dunbar High Demolition Bar is Lifted,” Washington Post, June 3, 1977, C5. 6 W. Montague Cobb to the President and Members of the D.C. Board of Education, addendum, 22 March 1976, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C. 7 William Raspberry, “The Final Indignity for Dunbar High?” Washington Post, March 21, 1977, A23. 159

The debate surrounding the demolition of the building revealed a paradigm shift in black political empowerment that was embodied in a new attitude towards the built environment. The re-appropriation of African American history and culture that was part and parcel of the Black Power Movement included a new vision for the future with the rhetoric of citizen participation, building autonomous neighborhoods, and avant-garde solutions to the problems that plagued black communities. These solutions included the creation of large-scale urban high schools that were meant to stimulate the stagnant or declining socio-economic and educational capital of many urban centers.

Ultimately, the class turnover that occurred at the school after desegregation and a changing political sentiment from accommodationist Civil Rights to more militaristic

Black Pride interests aided in the movement to demolish the old school building. Young and vocal political activists who saw the 1916 school building as a symbol of an era of exclusionary practices within the African American community argued that the school itself acted as a reminder of segregation and was no longer necessary in a post- segregation society. Changes in educational policy and pedagogy, the 1968 riots, desegregation, and a growing consciousness of cultural empowerment affected the design concept for the new building. New urban school construction and the demolition of the older building became a powerful act of local political and cultural authority. Along with the construction of Shaw Junior High, the new Dunbar was used as leverage for Great

Society urban renewal programs to aid its struggling neighborhood.

Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, the first municipally funded public high school in the nation for blacks, was founded in 1870 by the Board of Trustees of Colored

Schools of Washington and Georgetown president William Syphax and secretary William

160

H. A. Wormley as the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth.8 For the duration of

the first school year forty-five students met in the basement of the 15th Street Presbyterian

Church at 15th and R streets, N.W. The school moved numerous times during the next 21

years, first to Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School at 1050 21st Street, N.W., for the

1871-1872 academic year, then three more times, first to the Charles Sumner School at

17th and M streets, N.W., between 1872 and 1877, then the Myrtilla Miner School at 17th

and Church streets, N.W., between 1877 and 1891. The school finally settled at M Street

between 1st Street and New Jersey Avenue, N.W., where it was housed for twenty five

years, from 1891 to 1916.9

A great achievement was accomplished with the erection of a permanent building

meant specifically to house the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, particularly

after its unsteady beginning shifting from one location to the next. The institution was

renamed the M Street School in 1891 after the first substantial building was constructed

for the purpose of holding higher level grades, the result of an $112,000 appropriation by

Congress.10 One of the ninety-nine Washington public schools at that time, the M Street

School was a three-story building built primarily of red brick. The mass of the building

was divided into one grand central pavilion, with two flanking wings (Figure 51). The

careful articulation of details in the facade, however slight, showed the importance of the

building in its time. The front elevation used Philadelphia pressed brick, sandstone, and

wood ornament, in addition to architectural details such as belt coursing, decorative terra

cotta, semi-circular open and blind arches, and corbelled brick. The central pavilion and

8 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form for M Street High School, 2. 9 Mary Gibson Hundley, The Dunbar Story, 1870-1955 (New York: Vantage Press, 1965), 13, 17. 10 According to the National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form for M Street School, the school was renamed while it was housed in the Sumner School building at 17th and M Streets, N.W. 161

flanking wings of the school had separate entrances, and all were treated with classically

inspired decorative motifs. The doorways were crowned with a pediment and punctuated

on each side by paired composite pilasters.11 The M Street School’s design followed the

general trend of educational architecture at that time with standardized classrooms that

lacked functional distinction except for the auditorium and the cafeteria. In the late

nineteenth century many school floor plans did not vary greatly; instead, the main design differences between schools were built into the details of the façade.

In 1916 a new building was erected in response to the growing student body of

the M Street School and the need to expand teaching space. Congress appropriated

$500,000 and the building was designed of brick and concrete by municipal architect

Snowden Ashford, who served in the role from 1909 to 1921. Ashford supervised the

design of Washington public buildings and schools including the segregated white

Central High School (1916) and Eastern High School (1923). He was credited with more

experience building and maintaining schools than any other architect of the early

twentieth century.12 Notably the congressional appropriation for the erection of Central

High School was $1.2 million – more than twice that of the new M Street School.13

Despite the major difference in construction budget Ashford designed a regal and well- appointed new building for the M Street School, a reflection of his commitment to quality design in the face of racial segregation. One critic later noted that because Ashford did

11 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form for M Street High School, 1. 12 See Kimberly Prothro Williams, “Schools for All: A History of DC Public School Buildings 1804 – 1960,” District of Columbia Historic Preservation Office (2008), and S. J. Ackerman, “Architect of the Everyday,” Washington Post, November 6, 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2005/11/04/AR2005110401595.html (accessed February 20, 2011). 13 “Plans for New Schools,” Washington Post, September 29, 1914, 14. Another source listed the bid amount for the M Street/Dunbar High School as $550,000: “New High School Bids,” Washington Post, February 8, 1914, 31. 162

not discriminate in design “Washington's black schools were separate but truly equal to

their white counterparts.”14 The three-story building employed Tudor references with a running parapet along the roof and a central fortified tower on the facade, and contained large windows and a ventilation system. The latter two considerations reflected growing

concerns about health in educational design during the early twentieth century (Figure

52).15

The design of the school building was a testament to the hopes and wishes of its

community, and the national pride in the creation of such a well-equipped facility was

evident. According to an article published in The Crisis, some of the innovations

included a 1,500-seat auditorium “with provision made for presenting motion pictures,” a pipe organ, a swimming pool, cafeteria, a library, gymnasiums “with dressing rooms furnished with shower baths” for boys and girls, a banking department for business classes, home economics classrooms supplied within “modern dining and living room furniture” for instruction, a study hall, rifle range, and greenhouse.16 On January 17,

1916 the new M Street High School, located at 1st Street between N and O, N.W., was renamed Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in honor of the deceased poet (the District

Commissioners rejected the Board of Education’s request it be named after educator and abolitionist Charlotte Forten Grimke).17

14 Ackerman, “Architect of the Everyday.” 15 A number of these health concerns are addressed by Ben E. Graves in School Ways: The Planning and Design of America’s Schools (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993), 25, and Dale Allen Gyure, “The Transformation of the Schoolhouse: American Secondary School Architecture and Educational Reform, 1880-1920” (PhD diss., University of Virginia, 2001). “City Budget is Passed,” Washington Post, January 20, 1910, 4. 16 J. C. Wright, “The New Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C.,” The Crisis 13 no. 5 (March 1917): 220, 222. 17 “New School Named Dunbar,” Washington Post, January 18, 1916, 14. 163

Throughout segregation, and despite the problem of continuous overcrowding

over the years, Dunbar High School flourished, upholding the high tradition of the M

Street High School. Dunbar’s academic success was born out of racial discrimination

during the era of segregation because the school had a concentration of highly educated

black teachers, some of whom held doctorates, who were denied employment at other

educational institutions. This misfortune turned out to be a blessing for students who

were guaranteed a first-rate education at Dunbar. The school sent many of its graduates

to a number of prominent colleges, including Howard, Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth,

Oberlin, Antioch, Radcliffe, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Harvard, Vassar, and Yale, as a

result of the commanding faculty combined with a rigorous college preparatory

curriculum.18 While Dunbar had offered technical and business curriculum in earlier

times, it was later specifically developed as a classical academic school, with a strong

focus on Romance languages and Latin, as well as core classes such as mathematics and

science.

By the early twentieth century families sent their children to Washington from as

far as Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Dayton, Muskogee, Durham, Beaufort, Jackson, and

Oakland, because of the reputation of the black public schools, and particularly the

reputation of Dunbar as the leading college preparatory school for African American

students.19 The concentration of such a talented group of individuals would foster later perceptions of the school as elitist, a reputation that would work against preserving the

1916 building. Some of the more well-known graduates of Dunbar include Benjamin O.

Davis, the first black general in the United States Army, and innovator in blood plasma

18 Jervis Anderson, “A Very Special Monument,” New Yorker (March 20, 1978): 93, 100. 19 These cities were listed in the 1923 Dunbar yearbook as the hometowns for a sample of students in the class of 1923. See also Tucker Carlson, “From Ivy League to NBA,” Policy Review 64 (Spring 1993): 36. 164 research Charles Drew. Suffragist Mary Church Terrell and educator Anna Julia

Cooper, one of the first black women to receive a doctorate degree, both taught at

Dunbar. Cooper also served as principal of the M Street High School for the school from

1902 to 1906.

Dunbar’s history is closely linked to Armstrong Manual Training High School, which was founded in 1902 as a technical training school based on the principles of

Booker T. Washington. The fierce rivalry between Dunbar and Armstrong was played out academically as well as in extracurricular activities such as the cadet corps drills and sporting events. This rivalry was a local reflection of the national debate between W. E.

B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington about African American social and political empowerment. Dunbar was perceived to follow the Du Boisian mode of classical educational training, developing the “Talented Tenth” of the African American population, while Armstrong followed more closely Washington’s industrial-based approach towards self-sufficiency.

The memories about tensions between the two major African American high schools in the Washington continued to persist well after desegregation, and even in 1995 alumni of Armstrong were vocal about the negative associations that were a part of the rivalry. Jesse Davis, a member of Armstrong’s class of 1945 noted at his 50th class reunion that “the ‘talented tenth’ were supposed to go to Dunbar, the light-skinned, the smart, the sons of the doctor, lawyer, and Indian chief… if you were less than that, you were supposed to go to Armstrong or Cardozo [the business-oriented school].”20 Despite different educational philosophies both Dunbar and Armstrong had thrived during segregation and produced many talented graduates. Renowned and respected graduates

20 DeNeen L. Brown, “Still True to Their School,” Washington Post, July 13, 1995, 1. 165

of Armstrong Manual Training High School include musician Duke Ellington, the first

black District of Columbia chief of police Burtell Jefferson, and Judge John D.

Fauntleroy of the District of Columbia Superior Court.

A thesis completed in 1947 by James E. Harrison of Catholic University painted an unexpected socio-economic diversity in the Dunbar student population. Utilizing the records from the research department of Washington public schools, Harrison was able to glean information about the students’ home life. For the 19 boys in the study Harrison noted “serious congestion was reported in the homes of a number of the boys… one such home was an apartment of three rooms in which a family of seven lived… Another family of three persons occupied one small room… there were no facilities in the room for water, heat or light.”21 On the other end of the spectrum was “one case [where] a family of four were living in a house that was found to be especially neat, clean and well ordered . . . in another case, a family of seven persons lived in a quiet residential neighborhood, in a three-story brick house of ten rooms, with many modern improvements and comfortably furnished.”22

Harrison’s observations were certainly not without bias; however, he did

illuminate a wider range of living conditions for these particular students than the Dunbar

stereotype would have allowed. Harrison also found that the majority of the students’

parents’ occupations were listed as both skilled and unskilled. The examples in the study

were perhaps atypical since they were based on a pool of individual students who were

noted for behavioral problems. While Harrison did attempt to explain behavior as a

21 James E. Harrison Jr., “An Analysis of Fifty Cases of Delinquent Negro Students in the Dunbar High School With Reference to a Needed Program of Preventative Guidance” (master’s thesis, Catholic University of America, 1947), 28. 22 Ibid. 166

result of home conditions, he also did justice to the argument that Dunbar students did not

all fit into the elite category.

Montague Cobb, Dunbar alumnus and later president of the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), noted that in the first half

of the twentieth century “the pupils of both Dunbar and Armstrong came from all over

the city – northwest, Georgetown, Foggy Bottom, northeast, far northeast, southwest,

southeast, Anacostia and Congress Heights.”23 Critics of the elitist stereotype associated

with pre-desegregation Dunbar have often pointed to signs of diversity through a

multitude of sources such as first-hand alumni accounts, yearbook pictures, and the

Harrison study to debunk what they believe to be an unfair portrayal of working-class

families to whom quality education was of utmost importance.

Desegregation and a population shift reflective of the Second Great Migration

played a major role in the perceived decline of Dunbar as a leading educational

institution. While the process of desegregation did not change the racial demographic of

Dunbar’s students, due in part to a Board of Education clause that stated students were

prohibited from attending schools outside their neighborhood residential boundaries, it

did dramatically change the socio-economic status of the students. The students who

lived near Dunbar, a fraction of the school’s student body before desegregation, began

attending Dunbar after 1954 in increasing numbers because of the newly established

neighborhood school boundaries. Desegregation ended the era of Dunbar acting as the

national magnet school for African Americans. The academic change within Dunbar was

more drastic than its physical transformation as the school’s prestige began to diminish.

23 W. Montague Cobb to the President and Members of the D.C. Board of Education, 1 April, 1976, 5, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C. 167

Principal Charles Lofton placed the blame for poor academic performance squarely on

new students who were part of Washington’s increasing black migrant population from

southern states.24 The school slipped from high rankings and association with

Washington’s African American upper middle class in the 1950s to ultimately being

characterized as "a failing ghetto school" by conservative economist Thomas Sowell in

2002.25 Dunbar was historically and continued to be majority black; however, the real and perceived decline in academic and socio-economic level made it a target for demolition in tandem with larger urban renewal plans for its surrounding neighborhood.

These urban renewal plans provided increased community resources and housing in the

Shaw Urban Renewal Area, a new junior high school, and a high school upgrade that cost approximately $20 million.

The Battle to Preserve “Old Dunbar”

The new open-plan design was certainly not the first time the school facility had been upgraded. A report by a Dunbar alumnus and teacher of over 40 years, Mary

Gibson Hundley, stated that in 1950 there were repairs to the floor, installation of moveable desks and chairs, addition of a public address system, and the re-equipment of the school library. Of these improvements, Hundley noted perhaps ironically, “the school was refurbished and gradually relieved of congestion. An enlightened community had been ever mindful of Dunbar’s tradition and alert to its needs.”26 Problems in the school

by that time were not denied, but acknowledged by administrators, students, and alumni

24 For a detailed analysis of the effects of desegregation and the black migrant population on perceptions of Dunbar’s elite status see Chapter 1. 25 Thomas Sowell, “The Education of Minority Children,” in Education in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Edward P. Lazear (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2002), 79-92. 26 Hundley, The Dunbar Story, 50. 168

alike. Edgar R. Sims observed in his mid-1970s report about the school “certainly there

were deficiencies at Dunbar – such as the lack of a stadium and a better swimming

pool.”27 While the repairs noted by Hundley were important for maintenance, no major

overhaul of the physical structure had occurred since the school was built. Had any such

large-scale effort to modernize and expand on the school been made, the events that lead

to its demolition might have been avoided. Initial proposals in 1967 indicated that the

school was to have an addition designed by the architecture firm of Walton & Madden.28

The design was to be complementary with “various masses consolidated” and brick to

“match the color and texture of the existing building.”29 It is unclear why this proposal

did not go through; however, by 1971 the architecture firm Bryant & Bryant had

submitted a new design, which would later be adopted for the school.30

For city officials and school administrators, issues of overcrowding and lack of

proper maintenance contributed to the idea that older Dunbar physical plant was

inadequate. Policy makers who wanted to combat both the physical and social issues the

school was facing decided to replace it with a newer plant that followed the open-plan

design. The decision to build anew was born out of the school administration’s need to

update its facilities for changing demands and a lack of interest in maintaining and

reinvigorating the aging school.

The fate of the 1916 building evolved concurrently with the new Dunbar design.

While initial proposals included the older building as an auxiliary space for educational

27 Edgar R. Sims, Dunbar High School: The Crack in the White Wall, 1870-1974 (1975) Kiplinger Research Library, Historical Society of Washington, D.C. 28 Minutes of the Meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, 18 April 1967: 7, Archives of the Commission of Fine Arts. 29 Minutes of the Meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, 20 June 1967: 6, Archives of the Commission of Fine Arts. 30 Minutes of the Meeting of the Commission of Fine Arts, 8 July 1971: 2, Archives of the Commission of Fine Arts. 169

or office use on the school campus, later plans called for its demolition to provide

students with state-of-the-art sports facilities. In 1974 members of the presidentially

appointed city council moved to restrict funds for the Board of Education’s planned

demolition, withholding $430,000 of the total $1.4 million requested. This move was

spurred by three council members – Marjorie Parker, Henry S. Robinson, and Marguerite

Selden – who were Dunbar alumni. Selden declared “we’re not against progress but

there is sufficient ground to build a new Dunbar and preserve the old.”31 The battle that

would unfold in the African American community took place across both class and

generational lines (Figure 53). A high-profile group of alumni pushed either to preserve

or adaptively reuse the building. They championed keeping the building as offices for

school administrators or as a magnet school for the city. In direct opposition to the vocal

and powerful alumni was the camp of administrators including, Principal Phyllis

Beckwith, Mayor Walter Washington, and other city officials. The lines drawn in the

debate were not clean cut; not all alumni supported preservation nor did the majority of

city officials push the issue of demolition. Caught in the fray were local historic

preservation groups such as Don’t Tear It Down!, professional associations such as the

American Institute of Architects, local historians, and historical societies.32

The alumni offered arguments for saving the 1916 building that appealed to

history, culture, and collective memory. Some preservationists promoted black heritage

and empowerment to counter a lack of symbolism and monumentality in the black

community, which was a concern amongst conscious race builders in the city. William

31 La Barbara Bowman, “D.C. Council Blocks Dunbar High Demolition,” Washington Post, April 2, 1974, C5. 32 Anne H. Oman, “Saving the Pieces of Urban History: ‘Don't Tear It Down’ Battles Bureaucrats and Wrecking Balls in Preservation Fight,” Washington Post, December 1, 1977, 122. 170

Raspberry, one of the Washington Post’s most prolific African American writers, stated

“the old Dunbar building is more than fine architecture, although it is assuredly that. It is the embodiment of the proposition that black children, rich and poor, can, if excellently taught, achieve excellently. It is a very special monument to black achievement…”33 An

Evening Star article stated that “the black historical presence in this city has been diminished in the indifference of past generations and a denigration of the black community’s tradition in the Nation’s Capital.”34 Since Washington served as a symbol for the nation as a whole, many preservationists saw their job as saving a national treasure of black excellence, and not simply as a job of community preservation.

In 1976 Dunbar alumnus W. Montague Cobb, then national president of the

NAACP, penned a letter to the Board of Education president and Armstrong High alumnus Anita F. Allen that hinted at class tensions in the African American community stating “I cannot address your emotions and private prejudices or ambitions which may have motivated in part the plan of the Board to raze the building [original emphasis].”35

Cobb did not relent, and continued later in an enclosed statement to the letter “one has heard no proposal to tear down Armstrong High School across the street. The main

Armstrong building is much older than Dunbar and its plant occupies about as much space but there has been no hue and cry to tear down Armstrong.”36 Cobb had previously worked to debunk long-held stereotypes of Dunbar students by proclaiming contrary to

“consummate hogwash presently mouthed about elitism” that “black families of what would today be termed ‘affluent’ status were almost non-existent [between 1917 and

33 William Raspberry, “Dunbar: Victim of Mediocrity,” Washington Post, April 25, 1975, A27. 34 “Dunbar Should Stand,” Washington Star, March 6, 1975. 35 W. Montague Cobb to the President and Members of the D.C. Board of Education, 1. 36 Ibid., 4. Today the Armstrong High building is extant, although vacant. 171

1921]. Everybody worked and everybody walked or used the street car.”37 Cobb evoked

the sentiment of the Civil Rights and the devastation of the Washington 1968 riots that

swept the city only years earlier in his rhetoric when he declared “We have had enough of

‘Burn, Baby, Burn’” and instead beseeched the public to “Build, Baby, Build.”38

Additionally, the nation’s upcoming American Revolution Bicentennial

Celebration in 1976 and emphasis on national history played a part in the argument to

save the building, and aided the push to preserve memories of the “old Dunbar” for

posterity. As oral histories were becoming a more accepted methodology for historical

research, a group of Howard students created an oral history project that featured many

Dunbar alumni discussing their memories as students as a method of commemoration.

Meanwhile, the District of Columbia Bicentennial Commission conducted oral histories

of various neighborhoods, including Shaw, but did not play a larger role in the fight to

save the old Dunbar.39

In the midst of the controversy surrounding the fate of Dunbar the Evening Star

published a special-interest article on Phyllis Beckwith, principal of Dunbar in the old

building and during construction of the new building. Beckwith was portrayed as a

“stern Jamaican shepherdess” who demanded much for and from “her 1,450-student

flock.”40 While the article emphasized Beckwith’s no-nonsense attitude towards her students and toward those who might obstruct progress for her school, it also showed her softer, gentle side. It championed Beckwith as a leader who exhibited a “combination of guts and professional ambition” when she stepped into “the combat zone that Dunbar had

37 W. Montague Cobb, “The Dunbar Controversy: What to Do With a Famous School,” Washington Afro American, March 15, 1975, 13, 20. 38 Ibid. 39 Adrienne Manns, “Reaching Beyond the Written Word,” Washington Post, March 17, 1974, H1. 40 Donia Mills, “Phyllis Beckwith: Portrait of a Woman and Her School,” Washington Star, E1. 172

become at the close of the turbulent 60s, and restore[d] order in the halls taken over by

drugs and bands of roaming students.”41 Whether or not the article was successful in its

empathetic portrayal of Beckwith is debatable. Shortly after the April 1977 transfer of

the student body to the new building she was no longer principal and, by the fall of 1977

Dunbar welcomed her successor, Thomas Harper.42

The article also hinted at, but did not explicitly address, the condition of social ills

that could have been affecting the school at that time. In regards to Beckwith’s strict

hats-off policy, which included her snatching students’ hats when provoked, the reporter asked rhetorically “Isn’t this a bit much? With all the poverty, and the crime, and the drugs and despair – to make such a big deal about wearing hats indoors?” In another reference to conditions in and around the school the reporter acknowledged “Dunbar now sits in the middle of the highest crime precinct and some of the most neglected neighborhoods in town.” 43 However, the report was not completely negative, stating that

the reporter as a “white visitor from the suburbs… comes out pleasantly surprised” by her

visit. She continued by noting that “The halls are clean, the kids generally friendly and

well dressed… and most seem to be going from point A to point B with a sense of

purpose.”44 The reporter painted a picture of a tenuously troubled school in the 1916

building, one that had issues of facility deterioration but also the normal types of

problems that plagued any urban school, like teenage behavior and potentially

detrimental social settings outside the school. The article functioned to both soften the

41 Ibid., E4. 42 The conditions surrounding the transfer of power over the school from Beckwith to Harper were not elaborated in Washington Post articles examined about Dunbar between 1977 and 1978. Whether or not the controversy about demolition played a part in this move would have to be explored in future research. 43 Mills, “Phyllis Beckwith: Portrait of a Woman and Her School,” E1. 44 Ibid., E4. 173

perception of Dunbar’s principal and to give the reader a sympathetic glimpse into the

social and educational framework that brought about the need for a new Dunbar facility.

While the architects and planning committee were undergoing negotiations for the

largest and most expensive public school to be designed in the metropolitan area, concern

on the part alumni and preservationists grew for what would happen to the 1916 school

plant. According to Wolf Von Eckardt’s article the new building would be built adjacent

to the old one, with no mention of what would become of the aged building. However,

the site plan that was produced by Bryant & Bryant clearly showed site plans in which

the old school was replaced by a football field (Figure 54). By 1976, the immediacy of

the proposed demolition was apparent to any visitor to the site and passersby, and by

January 1977 Superintendent of Schools Vincent Reed stated “We wish to minimize any

delays in evacuating the old building, since we do not wish to raise again the possibility

that the old building will not be demolished.”45

Preservation battles were being fought all over the city in the 1970s. Washington

preservationists were called to action against the Pennsylvania Avenue Development

Corporation, which planned to demolish the 1899 Old Post Office. Geographer Paul L.

Knox pinpointed the mid-1970s as a paradigm shift in the political economy of the city,

where zoning laws supporting large-scale, mixed-use developments began to shape the downtown landscape.46 Knox argued that the expansion of the service industry in

Washington supported by the “Four A’s” – accountants, analysts, associations and

attorneys – increased the need for office space and created a postmodern aesthetic that

45 Vincent Reed to the D.C. Board of Education, 3 January 1977, 2, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C. 46 Paul L. Knox, “The Restless Urban Landscape: Economic and Sociocultural Change and the Transformation of Metropolitan Washington, D.C.,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 81 no. 2 (June 1991): 181-209, 190. 174

had hitherto not been seen in the city.47 The preservation group Don’t Tear It Down! was born out of a struggle to retain the unique qualities of buildings threatened by this widespread development. The group began actively engaging in advocacy for other threatened buildings throughout Washington, including the Willard Hotel and the

Franklin School.48

Concurrent with the birth of a local grassroots preservation movement was the

passage of the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which allotted significant

authority that was previously held in Congress to the local government. The city council

and mayoral positions were decided through election instead of presidential appointment,

and in 1974 Walter Washington and a new city council were elected to govern the city.

Parker, Robinson, and Selden’s terms as appointed city council members had ended, and

the council decided by a majority vote to move forward with the demolition. Don’t Tear

It Down! and the Dunbar Alumni Association brought legal cases against the city in order

to block the actions of the city council.49 District of Columbia Superior Court Judge

Harold H. Greene delayed the proposed April 1, 1977 date to demolish the structure to

give Dunbar alumni “the right to participate in an orderly and fair process of decision

making.” This process included listening to “meaningful negotiations” between city

officials, civic groups, public agencies, and interested citizens. 50 Three months later,

47 Ibid., 189. 48 Jeremy W. Dutra, “You Can't Tear it Down: the Origins of the D.C. Historic Preservation Act,” Georgetown Law Historic Preservation Papers Series, Georgetown University Law Center 2002, 12. http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=hpps_papers (accessed August 23, 2010). Don’t Tear it Down! was the predecessor organization of the D.C. Preservation League. 49 See Dunbar High School Alumni Ass'n v. District of Columbia, 105 W.L.R. 745, 105 W.L.R. 817, and 105 W.L.R. 1213 (1977) and Don't Tear It Down, Inc. v. District of Columbia, 395 A.2d 388, 390 (D.C. Ct. App. 1978). 50 “Judge Delays Planned Demolition of Historic Dunbar High School,” Washington Post, March 17, 1977, 73. 175

after acting as a mediator between the opposing factions, Greene lifted the bar against

demolition.

The construction of the new building and concurrent loss of a landmark raised questions about collective memory and identity in the community. The controversy over demolition threw into high relief the race and class issues that troubled the nation’s

capital in the early to mid-1970s. City officials pushed to modernize and redefine

Washington as an international cosmopolitan center in the midst of recovering from the

1968 riots. Looking forward to the 1976 Bicentennial, city officials were also

preoccupied with the portrayal of the Washington’s history in light of the national

festivities that would attract thousands of tourists.

During the controversy Thomas Sowell reflectively mused that “almost as

astonishing as Dunbar’s achievements has been the ignoring of those achievements.”51

The demolition of the old Dunbar is a symbolic indicator of how the achievements of the

school could be erased from physical memory. As a consolation potentially more

offensive to alumni than indulgent to them, Barbara Sizemore, Superintendent of Schools

from 1973 to 1975, stated that “a scale replica of the old Dunbar building [would] be

enshrined and displayed in the new building as a symbol.”52 The Board of Education’s

Committee on Capital Improvements wanted “to approve the sale of bricks from the old

Dunbar Senior High School Building to alumni and others” with proceeds to fund a

library at the new Dunbar building in honor of Dunbar alumni.53 In both cases the need

for a physical remnant or reminder of the old building was meant to satisfy the needs of

51 Thomas Sowell, “Black Excellence: A History of Dunbar High,” Washington Post, April 28, 1974, C3. 52 Jacqueline Trescott, “Old Dunbar High School: Too Good to Tear Down?” Washington Star. 53 Report by the Committee on Capital Improvements, August 28, 1975, 2, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C. 176

the vocal protestors against the building’s demolition. However, these efforts of

commemoration that focused on replication and distribution of the school’s ruins failed to

allow the school to serve prominently as a reminder of African American achievement in

the urban landscape, one that would speak to the then popular idea of communal uplift

based on a shared past. In Washington the demolition of Dunbar created a situation that

emphasized Black history while suppressing the story of the Black elite.

The manner in which the alumni attempted to save the structure highlights the

lack of tactical planning that was needed to maintain it. There is little evidence of an

alumni fundraiser to buy lands on which to re-locate the impeding football stadium or to

put their collective funds together to save the old Dunbar building. There was a flood of

rhetoric that simply could not produce the tangible results. While alumni appealed to

memory, the mayor and the Board of Education focused on modernization projects

elsewhere in the city, and continued to push for monetary allocation for maintenance of

other schools including Coolidge (1939), Cardozo (formerly Central) and Eastern high

schools.54 Ultimately the alumni’s lack of monetary power coupled with the profusion of rhetoric denied the cause’s success.

The lessons learned from the demolition of the 1916 Dunbar building were not in

vain. The old Dunbar building was placed on the District of Columbia Inventory of

Historic Sites as a landmark by the Joint Committee on Landmarks of the National

Capital in 1976; however, this local designation held no ultimate authority against

demolition it only guaranteed a delay in the process. Cognizant of the lack of power that such local designations held for endangered buildings, members of the Dunbar alumni

54 Richard E. Prince, “Board Sets Change In New School Plan,” Washington Post, December 20, 1973, C15, and La Barbara Bowman, “City Asks Funds for Building,” Washington Post, August 2, 1974, A28. 177

association began work to have the M Street High School building designated a National

Historic Landmark. While that campaign ultimately failed, a local Washington historian

noted “it is ironic that the M Street High School building survives to this day, albeit in

deteriorated condition, while its better known successor succumbed to the wrecking

ball.”55 Alumni familiar with the preservation process from their work with Dunbar

successfully saved the M Street High School building, which now provides community

services for the North Capitol Street area.

Today, both M Street and Armstrong high schools are listed on the District of

Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites as well as the National Register of Historic Places,

although neither has been granted national landmark status. The move to preserve the M

Street school building reflects the idea that the M Street/Dunbar High School legacy was

paradoxically a legacy in bricks and as well as a free-floating idea. The paradox is

exemplified in the shifting attention to the M Street School after the demolition of the old

Dunbar building. Associations of a time long gone were transferred from one building to

the next, yet the idea of M Street/Dunbar High School and what the institution stood for

remained constant.

Contemporary Condition of Urban Crisis Schools

In the sultry fall of 2008, in Northeast Washington, Howard D. Woodson High

School was demolished after serving its community for 36 years. The “Tower of Power” had been characterized by a student in the Washington City Paper as just “a tower. There

55 Antoinette J. Lee, “Magnificent Achievements: The M Street High School,” in “African American History and Culture: A Remembering,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management 20 no. 2 (1997): 34, 35. 178

ain’t no power.”56 In the spring of 2009, William Penn High School, sitting along storied

Broad Street in Philadelphia, was depicted as a “magnificent folly” by the architecture

critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer. At the time, the school was threatened with closure

by the Philadelphia School District only 35 years after it opened to much fanfare and

critical acclaim in the architectural press.57 The love affair with the groundbreaking

designs, potential for reform, and symbolism of the 1970s era schools had long been

over. Cities were grappling with the future of these buildings in which they had once invested so heavily. For most of the schools, closure and demolition were the options that school districts considered.

By the turn of the twenty-first century the idealism of school reform embodied in

the urban crisis buildings had diminished, and flexible, open-plan schools that dominated

high educational design had fallen out of fashion in the late 1970s.58 Officials showed an

interest in embracing the newest social theories about learning and teaching in open

environments in an effort to build the most technologically advanced high schools. The

attempt at corralling student behavior through architectural design was ultimately

unsuccessful, however, and the open-plan model was abandoned across the country.

56 Mike DeBonis, “End of an Error,” Washington City Paper, February 20, 2008 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34603/end-of-an-error (accessed January 26, 2011). 57 Inga Saffron, “Changing Skyline: William Penn High: Magnificent Folly,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 13, 2009 http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/inga_saffron/20090313_Changing_Skyline__William_Penn_Hi gh__Magnificent_folly.html. 58 See Mike Brodgen, “Plowden and Primary School Buildings: A Story of Innovation Without Change,” FORUM: For Promoting 3-19 Comprehensive Education 49 no. 1 (March 2007): 55-66. Brodgen argued that the appropriate teaching methodologies were not adapted to school pedagogy and that child-centered teaching was more rhetoric than reality in primary schools in England. This is true for the secondary school examples in the United States as well. 179

When the Secretary of Education visited Dunbar in 1980 she was “taken aback” by the

problems of noise carryover and the proximity of the classrooms to each other.59

Additionally, the scale of the concrete structures was alienating to school visitors, and the floor plan, praised for eliminating hallways, functioned so that students were made to feel their every move was under surveillance, reminiscent of a Foucauldian

Panopticon. Similarly, the aesthetic of the megalithic concrete buildings were increasingly disdained. The maintenance cost for these buildings continued to exceed the city budget for educational expenditures, so that they fell into disrepair. These realities combined to create a sentiment of antagonism in students, school administrators, and city officials to a very real condition of neglect and failure of promise. Each city has taken a distinctly different approach to face this challenge. Washington seeks to demolish and completely rebuild the schools, Atlanta has sensitively renovated and retrofitted the schools, and Philadelphia has temporarily closed the schools in hopes to update and re- brand them as specialized facilities operating with greater autonomy from the

Philadelphia School District.

As these schools grow older and require increasingly more maintenance it is important to understand two main trends in architectural and cultural heritage preservation that affect the fate of the buildings. The first is the slow acceptance of modernism in the preservation movement. Steps have been taken in the last fifteen years to bring greater attention to the plight of buildings of the recent past as worthy of preservation. However, the trend is still outside the mainstream of preservation activism and dialogue, though this is rapidly changing. The second tendency is the limited interaction between the African American and the historic preservation communities.

59 “For Education Chief, A Practical Lesson,” New York Times, January, 11 1980, A10. 180

Thus, these schools as modernist architectural expressions in black neighborhoods face a double threat of demolition as a result of their design and their association with African

American cultural heritage. School and city administrators directly in charge of the future of the buildings see themselves working within a vacuum without the proper context of a major movement in which to identify, and lacking peers with whom to discuss issues pertinent to their buildings.

Schools such as Dunbar, Woodson, Douglass, University City, and William Penn sit within the shadow of what architectural theorist Charles Jencks labeled the “Death of

Modernism,” and their fate is often linked subjectively to other discourses that highlight the setbacks of large scale modernist design.60 Jencks declared that the demolition of the

Pruitt-Igoe public housing projects in 1972 indicated the failure and end of the modernist movement. Built only seventeen years before their demise, these buildings were criticized for an overly rational plan that did not respond to local needs and could not provide an environment conducive to healthy living for the residents.

The symbolism of the demolition reverberated through the architecture community, as architects struggled to grapple with the meaning of their work and the future of the profession. However, in the civic realm, monumental modernist buildings continued to be built. Countless projects were constructed in Washington including the convention center, the J. Edgar Hoover building (headquarters to the Federal Bureau of

Investigation), the Watha T. Daniel Library built as part of the Shaw Urban Renewal

Area, the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art designed by I. M. Pei, the campus of the University of the District of Columbia, and the Third Church of Christ, Scientist just two blocks from the White House. These structures were all designed and constructed

60 See Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1977). 181

between 1964 and 1982 with an aesthetic which has been characterized as “Brutalist.”

The convention center and library have been demolished, and the Third Church is

awaiting demolition upon adoption of a new design for the site. The short life span of

these buildings is both a local and national trend, one that affects civic buildings on an

unprecedented level.

Preservation of the “recent past” was a reaction to the exclusion of buildings that

fell short of the 50-year rule of eligibility for inclusion on the National Register of

Historic Places. A significant distinction between the impetus to preserve modern

structures and earlier preservation priorities is the more pronounced focus on the

aesthetic, technical, and formal qualities of design that represented innovations in

technology and architectural expression, as opposed to association with a major historical event or person. As architectural historian Rebecca A. Shiffer astutely noted:

Modernist buildings, suburbs, roadside structures, and missile silos do not easily fit the popular concept of “old,” let alone “historic.” They also defy the general understanding of “aesthetically appealing,” which consciously and unconsciously drive many people’s decisions about the worth of elements of the built environment.61

The move to preserve buildings of the recent past tests the traditional notion of age-value

and forces practitioners as well as the general public to reconsider what characteristics of

a particular building make it preservation worthy. An additional challenge for the field is

the need to maintain and conserve the buildings themselves, which often were

constructed with experimental materials and construction techniques that require further

research for their conservation.

61 Rebecca A. Shiffer, “The Recent Past,” in “Preserving the Recent Past,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management18 no. 8 (1995): 4. 182

It may be a truism to declare that these schools that were born out of controversy will also die ensconced in controversy. The major overhauls in educational policy and architectural design led to a breathtaking new pace of experimentation in the urban public

school system. Riots and urban renewal pushed community activists to the forefront of the political sphere to get more involved with local issues confronting their neighborhoods. Forty years later these same schools built in a social and cultural milieu of upheaval are facing the major tests of time and taste, and many have failed to meet the expectations of the twenty-first century.

The future for 1970s schools in Washington is one of abandonment and

demolition. Woodson High School was demolished, and its contemporary Dunbar High

School is also facing demolition. Shaw Middle School was closed and stands vacant while students were transferred to nearby Garnett-Patterson school to attend classes.

These changes are part of a modernization project for Washington schools as envisioned

by the Office of Public Education Facilities Management (OPEFM). The OPEFM is a

new entity that was created in 2007 in the mayor’s office to fulfill the campaign promises

of then mayor-elect Adrian Fenty for a complete overhaul of the Washington school

system, which had garnered a reputation as one of the worst in the nation.

The District of Columbia Education Reform Act of 2007 established the OPEFM,

and Fenty appointed Allen Y. Lew, former chief executive officer of the District of

Columbia Sports and Entertainment Commission to the helm. Lew had previously been

heralded for his work overseeing the renovation of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial

Stadium and the construction of both the Washington Nationals Stadium and the

183

Washington Convention Center.62 According to the OPEFM website, the cost of the fifteen-year campaign to modernize educational facilities is $3.5 billion, and includes new construction, renovation, and building maintenance.63 Numerous neighborhood schools have been closed and demolished in order to create a higher concentrated student population which had shrunken steadily since the 1970s. The total public school student population declined by 8 percent in the six years leading up to the 2006 election.64

School consolidation was a key goal of the Fenty administration. Consequently elementary and middle schools felt the blunt force of the process throughout the city.

Discourse about design, public education, the structure of Washington local government, and the psyche of the contemporary student coalesced in the public sphere when the final plans to demolish Woodson High School solidified. Newspapers such as the Washington Post and the Washington City Paper followed the story, and bloggers contributed to the public airing of grievances against the condition of the school district.

The newspaper coverage had a reminiscent and nostalgic tone that emphasized leadership by principals such as Napoleon B. Lewis and James W. Curry, their strict code of conduct in the 1970s and 1980s and a high academic standard for excellence. The reports also discussed the shared feeling of black pride and the state-of-the-art construction and

62 Government of the District of Columbia Office of Public Education Facilities Management, “About the OPEFM,” http://opefm.dc.gov/about.html (accessed June 14, 2010); and David Nakamura, “Fenty Picks Veteran Of Public Projects To Upgrade Schools,” Washington Post June 14, 2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/13/AR2007061301923.html (accessed June 14, 2010) 63 Government of the District of Columbia Office of Public Education Facilities Management, “About the OPEFM.” 64 Mary Filardo, Marni Allen, Nancy Huvendick & Ping Sung et al., “Quality Schools, Healthy Neighborhoods, and the Future of D.C.,” (21st Century School Fund, September 2008), 3 http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411768_future_of_dc.pdf (accessed June 14, 2010). 184

amenities that were appreciated and used by students as well as various members of the

community.65 One former student reminisced:

[Woodson] was completely overwhelming and very beautiful. Back in those days, no one referred to Woodson's structural appearance as resembling a prison. Instead, we all thought that Woodson resembled an office building. It was sparkling, with tinted windows… It had a very nice outdoor plaza which featured concrete seating, landscaped planter boxes and large globe pole lighting. It featured a large parking lot for administrators, faculty and staff, assembly areas, and the grounds were professionally landscaped …I never saw a dirty Woodson exterior back in those days---as the precast concrete facade, sidewalk and plaza pavers were very clean…We had the nicest campus in the city---with a state-of- the-art stadium, tennis courts, basketball courts, a baseball diamond and student mingling areas. The interior of the building was awesome--and very color coordinated (red and yellow on the 1st floor, gold on the ground floor and floors 3 and 6, blue on the plaza level and floor 4 and 7, and rose on floors 2 and 5.66

By all accounts, Woodson was a success in terms of architectural design,

education, and cultural empowerment when it was first built and opened to the public.67

Public opinion and debate about the demise and future of Woodson was heated.

The school’s story echoed the general narrative of Washington in which the crack era of

the late 1980s and 1990s as well as the city’s bankrupt budget exacerbated a rapid

physical decline matched by an increase in crime and poverty. Critics of the school

district’s handling of Woodson over the last twenty years point to the budget cuts for the

school and the shrinking of the custodial staff from fifteen to six as major factors in the

physical decline of the school (Figures 55-58). 68 Since the size of the custodial staff was

tied directly to the student enrollment, the downsizing marked the decreasing number of

65 See DeBonis, “End of an Error” and V. Dion Haynes, “A Landmark's Looming Demise,” Washington Post, June 11, 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2008/06/10/AR2008061002953.html?nav=rss_metro/dc (accessed June 23, 2010). 66 Ken as quoted in Comment section, DeBonis “End of an Error,” February 27, 2008, 9:51 pm http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34603/end-of-an-error (access June 23, 2010). 67 In addition to the newspaper articles pointing to the early outstanding culture of achievement at Woodson, the school was profiled in Mary Rhodes Hoover, Norma Dabney, and Shirley Lewis, eds., Successful Black and Minority Schools: Classic Models, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education April 1978 Conference (Julian Richardson Association, December 1990). 68 DeBonis, “End of an Error.” 185

students attending the school in the 1990s. Other sentiments placed the blame for the

downward turn in the physical plant and the lack of an outstanding academic record

squarely on the students, claiming that if they respected the building more, and worked

harder towards academic achievement the situation at Woodson would have been vastly

different and would not have led to demolition (Figure 59).

The fate of Washington’s Woodson High School and Philadelphia’s William Penn

High School are tied with similar narratives of grand design, crime and poverty issues,

academic failure and building neglect (Figures 60-61). In Philadelphia William Penn

High School was threatened with closure, its future uncertain, while University City is planned to close in 2010 to begin a moderate rehabilitation project and re-open under the aegis of the Renaissance School Initiative as a Promise Academy.69 William Penn’s

failures were cited as decreased student enrollment – the school was built to house a

maximum 2,423 students, but in 2009 had only 588 – as well as subpar academic

performance and a building plant that had suffered from neglect and deterioration at the

hands of the school district.70 The school district argued that the property was not worth

the cost of maintenance, echoing sentiments held by the Washington school district in

regards to Woodson and Dunbar high schools.

Neighborhood residents, alumni, students, local clergy, and elected officials

fought the Philadelphia School District’s decision to close the school in 2009 in a manner

reminiscent of the local community action of the late 1960s. Pennsylvania state

69 See Fernando A. Gallard, The School District of Philadelphia. “School District of Philadelphia Announces Final Selection of Renaissance Schools for School Year 2010-2011,” news release, March 30, 2010 http://www.phila.k12.pa.us/announcements/rel_renaissance.pdf. The Promise Academy program has been likened to a magnet or charter school. See also “Commission To Close 2 Philly Schools,” My Fox Philly, February 19, 2009 http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/Phillyschools021909 (accessed July 13, 2010). 70 Shari Dacosta, “School's Out,” Philadelphia City Paper, June 17, 2009 http://citypaper.net/articles/2009/06/18/schools-out (accessed July 13, 2010). 186

representative W. Curtis Thomas, North Philadelphia native and chairman of the State

House Urban Affairs Committee, spearheaded the Coalition for the Revitalization of

William Penn High School group effort.71 The organization was formed in direct

opposition to the school district’s plans for closure. The group coordinated meetings and encouraged members to attend hearings by the school district on William Penn’s future.

Proposals by advocates of keeping the school building open have included leasing part of the building to nearby Temple University or tapping into the “unrealized potential” of the design by opening the campus’ closed buildings to create specialized academies of learning in fields such as healthcare and the green industries.72 By fall of 2009 the group

successfully rallied their points about the importance of the school to its community, and

the motion to close William Penn was abandoned.73 However, the decision of what to do

with the current building has yet to be made. In 2010 the school district closed the school

temporarily for a minimum of two years as it decides whether to renovate the current

structure or build anew.

Coincidentally, proposed replacements for both Woodson and Penn high schools

included state of the art green building design. The Philadelphia proposal came from

Robert Kirby of the non-profit Wharton Centre, who suggested that stimulus funds would

support the green building and take a significant portion of the funding onus off the

school district.74 The Washington proposal came from Allen Y. Lew, head of the

OPEFM, who stated he “would like to construct a green school with solar power and

71 Pennsylvania House of Representatives, “Thomas Announces William Penn High School Will Not Close,” news release, June 25, 2009 http://www.pahouse.com/pr/181062509.asp (accessed July 13, 2010). 72 Ibid. 73 Shari Dacosta, “William Penn High School to Stay Open After All,” Philadelphia City Paper: The Clog, June 25, 2009 http://citypaper.net/blogs/clog/2009/06/25/william-penn-high-school-to-stay-open-after-all/ (accessed July 13, 2010). 74 Ibid. 187

geothermal heating and air conditioning in a lower-profile building of only three stories

(Figures 62-63).”75 One Washington critic of the green school design proposal queried

“Does anyone have the confidence that D.C. government will maintain a green building?

I see that as a challenge to their capacity. Their track record is not the best in that

regard.”76 These questions about the ability of the cities to maintain avant-garde designs

should be at the heart of the school rebuilding campaign, as the school districts attempt to redefine themselves by embracing the latest trends. This eagerness for the avant-garde is

part and parcel of what is hindering the life span of the buildings built only thirty to forty years ago.

An alternative to demolition has been undertaken in Atlanta. Both Harper High

School and Frederick Douglass High School have been rehabilitated and retrofitted to respond to present-day needs. Harper High was closed in 1995 and merged with Samuel

Howard Archer High School, creating Harper-Archer High School, which was converted

to Harper-Archer Middle School in 2002. The facility was recently updated and

expanded as part of the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) Smart Growth Project

comprehensive master plan (Figures 64-65). Frederick Douglass High School benefited

from the same project of the APS, and is unique amongst the high schools in this case

study because of its extensive renovations that reorganized the interior and added

windows on the exterior (Figures 66-67). The 2002-2003 re-design also included the

addition of an auditorium, gymnasium, and landscaped courtyard to the campus (Figures

75 V. Dion Haynes, “A Landmark's Looming Demise,” Washington Post, June 11, 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2008/06/10/AR2008061002953.html?nav=rss_metro/dc (accessed June 23, 2010). 76 Oknow1 as quoted in Comment section, Haynes, “A Landmark’s Looming Demise,” June 11, 2008 11:21:36 AM. 188

68-69). It represents the most successful rehabilitation of the original school design of all

schools discussed in this study to date.

In the twentieth century Dunbar High School was housed in three separate

facilities (Figures 70-72). For this school in particular, institutional memory and a quest

for preservation have continuously been trumped by aesthetic taste and short-sightedness

on behalf of the Washington school district. The home of Dunbar will change again since

the school district and the OPEFM conducted design competitions for a new building

plant. A request for proposals and design competition was announced in the fall of 2009,

and despite the participation of several competent firms the OPEFM found no proposal

satisfactory and no design was chosen. 77 The process was repeated in the fall of 2010

through the OPEFM with a new request for proposals and new set of architecture firms

after the failure of the first attempt.

While the re-design of the school is not supposed to be a carbon copy of the 1916

facility, sentiment ran deep with alumni and administrators that it should have attempted

to re-create the essence of that building. In 2010 Washington city councilmember Harry

Thomas Jr., stated “I hope we have enough architectural sense to do something

reminiscent of ‘old Dunbar’” at a dedication for the Dunbar Room at the Sumner School

Museum and Archives, the official archive of the Washington public school district.78

City council chairman and “old Dunbar” alumnus Vincent Gray called the 1977 building

77 Ruth Samuelson, “Design Competition Launching for New Dunbar High School Building,” Washington City Paper, November 20, 2009 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2009/11/20/design-competition-launching- for-new-dunbar-high-school-building/ (accessed June 23, 2010); Government of the District of Columbia Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, “Request for Proposals Architect/Engineering Services Dunbar Senior High School” November 16, 2009. http://opefm.dc.gov/pdf/RFP-for-Architect- Engineering-Services-Dunbar-SHS.PDF (accessed July 7, 2010). 78 Harry Thomas Jr., Remarks at the Dedication of the Dunbar Room at the Sumner School Museum and Archives, March 27, 2010, Washington, D.C. 189

a “failed experiment in open-plan” design and called for the new design to “be able to

create connection to the past.” Gray declared the 1916 building an “outstanding

structure… majestic [and] fitting for the name of Paul Laurence Dunbar.” In a final

declaration echoed by alumni of old Dunbar, Gray called for the OPEFM to “put back

what never should have been torn down.”79 These sentiments begged the question of whether or not the design would capture a postmodern sentiment that takes architectural elements from the previous building to physically evoke this nostalgia. Conversely, would designers work to create anew the meaning of monumental architecture for the twenty-first century?

Preservation of Educational Facilities

The higher education counterparts to the avant-garde high school designs have generally been granted a positive outcome in terms of preservation. The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City recently held a design competition to alter its main street façade and add more circulation to the structure, without demolishing the original building. The Art and Architecture building at Yale University has recently been renovated and rededicated as Paul Rudolph Hall, and is once again considered a masterpiece after years of criticism. The building had been cited by critics as inspiration for the design of William Penn and Dunbar high schools.80 The high schools, however,

are unlikely candidates for renovation as extensive as the Art and Architecture Building,

with funding issues being the most obvious challenge. Another difference is the chain of

79 Vincent C. Gray, Remarks at the Dedication of the Dunbar Room at the Sumner School Museum and Archives, March 27, 2010, Washington, D.C. 80 See Saffron “Magnificent Folly” and Von Eckardt, “Design for an Urban Setting,” Washington Post, December 11, 1971, E1. 190

command and power structure of the buildings. Public high schools fall under the purview of the city and the school district and private universities answer to their board of trustees or regents. Additionally, in the case of the university, there is a greater variety of buildings on campus that help mitigate the feelings of antipathy towards a building considered too avant-garde in its context. The public high school campus, on the other hand, relies on one major building to house most of its functions and is used by all students and staff, subjecting it to a greater amount of criticism overall.

In 2000 the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), a non-profit organization founded to preserve and advocate for historic sites, listed neighborhood schools across the United States as one of their “11 Most Endangered Historic Places.”81

That year the NTHP created the Historic Neighborhood Schools Initiative, which

produced numerous policy guides and publications to help local state preservation offices

and community advocates build the knowledge base needed to preserve their historic

neighborhood schools. The NTHP joined a collaborative established by the 21st Century

School Fund, a Washington non-profit that works to “promote public engagement in

school facilities planning,” as part of this initiative.82 The NTHP published studies meant

to enrich and inform the decision-making process for school renovation. These studies

outlined state policies for school construction and highlighted certain points in policy

guidelines that conflicted with preservation priorities. They also aligned preserving

neighborhood schools with smart growth, highlighted successful case studies, and

81 See National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Historic Neighborhood Schools,” http://www.preservationnation.org/travel-and-sites/sites/nationwide/historic-neighborhood-schools.html (accessed July 8, 2010). 82 Constance E. Beaumont, “State Policies and School Facilities: How States Can Support or Undermine Neighborhood School and Community Preservation.” National Trust for Historic Preservation. May 2003, 2. http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/historic-schools/additional- resources/schools_state_policies.pdf (accessed July 8, 2010) 191

explained necessary plans of action when advocating for the preservation of

neighborhood schools to local and state authorities.83

The main arguments of these reports echoed some of the major tenants of new

urbanism. The Smart Growth Schools fact sheet stated that preserving historic

neighborhoods schools increased the walkability of neighborhoods and was beneficial to

the health of students. It proposed that cities and states would spend less on busing

transportation annually if they maintained their neighborhood schools, and teenagers who

could not afford cars could either walk or bike to schools. These policy briefs also

argued that if states revised some of their policies regarding minimum space requirements

for students then they would curtail the amount of sprawl happening in metropolitan

areas.84 One of the greatest factors cited in the push to preserve neighborhood schools

was that they created a sense of place and acted as community anchors that should be

available to all residents of the neighborhood.

The 21st Century School Fund released a publication in 2001 focusing on the

dilemma that the Washington public school system faced in creating a master plan for the

modernization of its schools. In asking the question of whether to replace or modernize

the schools in Washington the publication was particularly biased against schools that

were built during and after World War II. The bias was based on age-value as well as

83 See Constance E. Beaumont, “State Policies and School Facilities;” National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Smart Growth Schools: A Fact Sheet,” http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/historic- schools/additional-resources/schools_smartgrowth_facts.pdf; Constance E. Beaumont, “Historic Neighborhood Schools Deliver 21st Century Educations,” National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, May 2003, http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/historic-schools/additional- resources/schools_21st_edu.pdf, National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Older and Historic Schools: A Roadmap for Saving Your School,” Updated January 2010, http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/historic-schools/additional-resources/school_study_roadmap.pdf, and National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Older and Historic Schools: Restoration vs. Replacement and the Role of a Feasibility Study,” http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/historic-schools/additional- resources/school_feasibility_study.pdf (accessed July 8, 2010). 84 National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Smart Growth Schools: A Fact Sheet,” 2-3. 192

aesthetic-value considerations. Schools such as Shaw Junior High School and Woodson

High School were deemed non-historic and lacking in ornamentation and detailing.

According to the report:

The old [pre-World War II] schools were constructed with high quality materials. It is not uncommon to find hallway floors of terrazzo and classroom floors are wood. These materials that were standard in many old schools are considered too expensive for today’s new schools… Historic schools include many unique and irreplaceable design elements, including handcrafted moldings and artistic decorations like mosaic tile around the drinking fountains at Cardozo Senior High School and the bas-relief in the entrance at MacFarland Junior High School.85

This position privileges a more traditional approach to architectural embellishment that

was rejected in school design during and after the World War II era. Architectural

expression after World War II was present; it simply took on a different form that

highlighted the materiality of concrete and other new types of construction materials, and

de-emphasized handiwork and craft.

Although the 21st Century School Fund report did not advocate for the

preservation of schools such as Woodson, Shaw, and Dunbar, these schools qualified for

future preservation by the school district according to the very definition and standards

outlined in the report. While the buildings did not fall into the fifty-year age category, they met the criteria listed in the report for recommendation to be listed on the National

Register for Historic Places on a multitude of points. These schools qualify for at least eleven points in the nomination criteria prepared by the State Historic Preservation Office in the Multiple Property Documentation Form for D.C. Public School Buildings including unique architectural design, and exemplifying the historiography of the public

85 21st Century School Fund, “Replace or Modernize? The Future of the District of Columbia's Endangered Old and Historic Public Schools,” May 2001, 1-10. http://www.21csf.org/csf- home/publications/pubs.asp#replace (accessed June 12, 2010). 193 school system in Washington.86 Despite these clear indications of the importance of structures like Woodson, Dunbar, and Shaw, none of the schools were considered significant enough for consideration in the feasibility study. The report recommended the demolition and replacement of both Woodson and Shaw schools.

The bias of the report towards schools built before 1945 is clear in tone and language, and even in the recounts of community questionnaires and meetings. While researchers doing work for the study went into all the wards of the city to gauge public opinion on neighborhood schools, they were not consistent in the types of questions asked of neighborhood residents. The study prompted residents to rank architectural and historical significance in the future planning of school construction and how it affected the character of their neighborhood; however, these questions were not included on the community dialogue prompts for most of the area east of the Anacostia River, as well as

86In this case, the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) for Washington, D.C. is the Historic Preservation unit of the D.C. Office of Planning. The nomination criteria included: 1. [The building] must be a purpose-built District of Columbia public school building. 2. The building must be in its original location but not necessarily in its original use. 3. The building must retain integrity of design, materials, and workmanship. The principal facades of the building must retain a majority of the character-defining original fabric that was present during the building's period of significance. Of primary significance are the building's materials, pattern of fenestration, decorative features, and massing. Reversible exterior alterations will not be considered to have adversely affected the building's integrity. 4. Properties may be eligible if the building conveys important information concerning the history of the development of the public school system in Washington, D. C. including the: a). Evolution of public education for African Americans; b). Changing philosophies of education; c). Administration of the public schools and the effect of federal and local politics on the schools; d). Development of Washington neighborhoods; e). Evolution of African American life and culture; f). Changes reflecting periods of national crisis e.g. the Civil War, World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II; and g). Segregation, desegregation, and integration. 5. Properties may be eligible if the building conveys information about public school architecture (including style, form, materials, technology, or aesthetic development) in Washington or the country, or must be the work of a recognized architect, builder, craftsman, sculptor, artist or other significant to our past. 194

portions of Ward 1, which included some of the newer school buildings in the city.87 The

responses purposefully would contain less information about how the communities

themselves felt about their post-World War II buildings. The feasibility report attempted

to address the issues facing the aging building stock of schools in Washington but from

the onset did not aim to be as equitable as possible. In the same city, the NTHP

continued to publish reports that advocated for maintenance of neighborhood schools and

a sense of place. However both the NTHP and 21st Century School Fund reports held a

bias against schools built after 1945 that was not limited to age-value, but privileged an

early twentieth-century aesthetic as well.

African American Cultural Heritage Preservation

In addition to the potential stigma of the modern aesthetic, a second challenge to

the preservation of these schools is that they follow a tradition of segregation in the past

which some critics may find problematic. As the example of the demolition of the 1916

Dunbar High School showed, an argument against preserving the high school included

the fact that it was a reminder of a segregated and unequal past, one of exclusion, and one

that, according to critics, should be forgotten or be replaced with a forward-looking design. This argument has presented itself in numerous publications on the challenges of preserving the segregated past. One key issue to maintain, however, is that while many of these publications refer to a segregated past as the Jim Crow era and existing only before 1954, the construction of all the schools in this study reveal that the segregated past reached well into the 1980s.

8721st Century School Fund, “Replace or Modernize?” 1-2, 1-3. 195

The methodological and nuanced construction of separate spaces for blacks and

whites temporally and geographically informs the context of these school designs and is

outlined in the work of historian Robert R. Weyeneth, architectural historian Amy S.

Weisser, and architect Craig Barton and.88 Weyeneth focused on the architectural and

customary forms that lead to the isolation of the black community. These forms included

outright exclusion, duplicity (in the vein of separate but equal), temporal separation

(public parks, zoos), as well as architectural partitioning – fixed partitions (theater

balconies, train waiting rooms), malleable partitions (public buses) – and finally

behavioral separation (restrictions on socializing within shared space). These categories

add to the complexity of analyzing segregated space and the impact it had on its users.

While this type of examination privileges the narrative of exclusion it also highlights the

way that many of the sites preserved as part of a national narrative in African American

history and the struggle for civil rights are sites of exclusion and hostility.

Amy Weisser noted an exception to this trend when she noted that two of the four

Brown v. Board of Education schools that have been designated as national landmarks are

formerly segregated black schools and sites of duplicity. Monroe Elementary School, the

segregated black school that Linda Brown attended is the Brown v. Board of Education

National Historic Site in addition to its national landmark status.89 African Americans

who attended the previously all-black schools rallied to have those schools nominated, a

testament to the proud history of the schools that operated under the segregated system.

88 See Robert R. Weyeneth, “Historic Preservation and the Civil Rights Movement,” in “Connections: African American History and CRM,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management 19 no. 2 (1996), Craig Barton, ed. Sites of Memory: Perspectives on Architecture and Race (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001), and Amy Weisser, “Marking Brown v. Board of Education: Memorializing Separate and Unequal Spaces” in Sites of Memory. 89 Cheryl Brown Henderson, “The Brown Foundation Story Developing Resources to Interpret Public History,” in “Connections: African American History and CRM,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management 19 no. 2 (1996), 8. 196

In the case of Monroe “the cause drew upon their appreciation for the quality education

received in the segregated elementary school and its significance to the reversal of

discriminatory policies across the United States.”90 In the face of these conflicting

perspectives – honoring a formerly segregated black school on a federal legislation

decision to desegregate schools – Weisser queried:

These choices raise questions about agency and identity in the early 1950s and today: What histories do the various “black” and “white” buildings contain and who interprets these stories? How does the preservation of a building whose existence was predicated by exclusion make a place for a diverse community? How do buildings gain positive meaning for those who had no voice in their existence but who had primary experiences therein? Can lack of place, or absence, be marked?91

Craig Barton was involved in similar critical questions when he described segregation as

a means of creating duality in the public sphere with “separate, though sometimes

parallel, overlapping, or even superimposed cultural landscapes for black and white

Americans” and limited visibility of the black population as a result.92 It is possible to

argue that designation of these sites of duplicity makes visible again what was once

obscured from the larger public sphere due to segregation.

Harper, Douglass, William Penn, University City, Shaw, Woodson and Dunbar

were constructed in black communities with majority black student populations, all the

while they were touted early on by their respective school boards as being proponents of

integration and equality. Anthropologist Elgin L. Klugh pointed to the loss of black

schools when he stated that “African American communities bore the brunt of

90Rachel Franklin Weekly, “From Segregation to Preservation Monroe Elementary School,” in African American History and Culture,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management 20 no. 2 (1997): 38. 91 Amy Weisser, “Marking Brown v. Board of Education: Memorializing Separate and Unequal Spaces” in Sites of Memory, 106. 92 Craig Barton “Duality and Invisibility: Race and Memory in the Urbanism of the American South” in Sites of Memory, 3. 197

desegregation. For increased educational opportunities, many African Americans

sacrificed their most beloved community institutions (outside of the church).”93 These urban crisis schools are strong reversals of that trend: even though their construction kept the black student population concentrated, they created new resources for their communities, in effect strengthening them during the time of desegregation. Given their historical and political milieu, one could characterize these as black power high schools, despite the complicated relationship the buildings had with urban renewal. These buildings were meant to instill a sense of pride in their black neighborhoods, even though some like University City High School in Philadelphia grew out of a need to attract a white, middle-class resident base to the neighborhood around Penn and Drexel. These high schools represent a period of cultural, social, and political empowerment in black communities of Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington. Despite this empowerment they reflect the continued de facto segregation in these cities post-Brown v. Board of

Education. These realities add to the complicated nature of their preservation.

Since African American cultural heritage had long been on the periphery of the

preservation movement, the types of landscapes preserved tended to be those that

reflected a national narrative from slavery to emancipation: slave houses, churches,

segregated lunchroom counter tops, sites associated with the Civil Rights Movement, and

schools directly involved with Brown v. Board of Education. In 1996 the National Park

Service identified cultural and historical resources in its inventory: those associated with important historical figures; those associated with the institution of slavery or the movement to abolish slavery; those forts and battlefields associated with African

93 Elgin L. Klugh, “Reclaiming Segregation-Era, African American Schoolhouses: Building on Symbols of Past Cooperation,” Journal of Negro Education 74 no. 3 (Summer 2005): 246-259, 249. 198

American soldiers; and those associated with traditional African American communities.94 This spectrum continues to be broadened as more activists in African

American communities work to nominate their significant properties.

In 1996 Weyeneth identified three major issues within the push to preserve

African American sites: the challenge of local resources (the national narrative taking

precedence over the local narrative); the challenge of “young” resources – vernacular

sites considered to be insignificant in the hierarchical canon of architecture or national

history – and the challenge of controversial history. Here he asked pointedly “Where is

black power? Where are the Black Panthers? Where is Malcolm X?”95 These three

challenges are all applicable to the schools discussed in this study, as they were created

during highly controversial times and represent a period of history in the American city

that has been the dubious distinction of being nicknamed the “urban crisis.” While work

by preservationists in the field of African American cultural heritage has been successful

in beginning to address the first two points, the nature of the last point remains a

challenge. It is clear, however, that the overall narrative of the school construction is one

of empowerment and innovation despite historical associations of urban unrest, poverty,

and crime. Studying these schools creates contextualized records of their histories that

highlight a critical juncture in the Civil Rights-Black Power narrative. Weyeneth underscores this sentiment:

Some of the difficulty in presenting controversial history is rooted in the challenges of assessing the civil rights movement after 1965 or so, when the story becomes more complicated: when the heroes, victims, and villains become harder to define; when violence seems to take on some utility; when we as a society lose

94 See Jenny Masur, “African American History in the National Parks,” in “Connections: African American History and CRM,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management 19 no. 2 (1996). 95 Robert R. Weyeneth, “Historic Preservation and the Civil Rights Movement,” in “Connections: African American History and CRM,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management 19 no. 2 (1996), 28. 199

consensus about the meaning of the movement and what the future should hold. It becomes easier to leave out black separatism and white backlash, for example, and to follow the story only through the end of Dr. King’s life in 1968.96

This connection melds the milieu of urban upheaval, architectural design, and community

politics during a period of major paradigm shifts in the historiography of the American

city.

Scholars and preservationists have increased study and activism on behalf of

lesser known monuments to black history on the local level. Many of these buildings are

churches and schools, two community anchors that have left an indelible mark in the

social and cultural fabric of neighborhoods in cities across the nation. While much of the

major scholarship of school preservation still centers on schools that commemorate the legislation of Brown v. Board, there are increasingly diverse and more localized initiatives happening in neighborhoods across the country.97 Even in the case of Brown

v. Board of Education, historians in the mid-1990s were trying to break down the

hierarchy of Topeka as the dominant locale for the narrative of the case by compiling oral

histories from across the nation and expanding the narrative to cities such as Farmville,

Virginia, and Summerton, South Carolina.98

Sites that scholars and activists have also preserved as part of a national African

American heritage narrative include those tied to the Underground Railroad. Historian

Judith Wellman’s 2002 article on an initiative in New York to document sites associated

with the Underground Railroad recorded the challenges her group faced when creating

96 Ibid. 97 See Amy Weisser, “Marking Brown v. Board of Education: Memorializing Separate and Unequal Spaces” in Sites of Memory. 98 Jean Van Delinder, “Oral Histories Capturing Forgotten Moments in Civil Rights History,” in “Connections: African American History and CRM,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management 19 no. 2 (1996), 15. 200

nomination forms for the National Register of Historic Places. Two of the major

setbacks were presenting oral traditions as an acceptable means of documentation and the

fact that some sites were speculative, secluded, and occasionally deteriorated.99

An exemplary plan for highlighting local African American resources for preservation is the national initiative launched by the NTHP to document and preserve

Rosenwald schools in black communities.100 While the scope of the initiative spans the country, the depth of it is situated within the local context of each school in cities across the south. Rosenwald schools were philanthropic ventures partially funded by Julius

Rosenwald, who challenged local black communities to match or exceed his monetary

gifts to build schoolhouses in areas that lacked such facilities.101 This building program

was prolific in the South, where over 5000 schools were built between 1923 and 1937.

Of those, roughly 800 remain.102 Wellman stated in her survey of Underground Railroad

sites that: “strict definitions of integrity have often excluded historically important sites

relating to economically, politically, or socially marginalized Americans. This has

certainly been true for African Americans.”103 This is exactly what makes the Rosenwald

Schools Initiative and the work with the Underground Railroad so groundbreaking – the

focus on socio-cultural narratives versus the aesthetic-value argument for preservation.

99 See Judith Wellman, “The Underground Railroad and the National Register of Historic Places: Historical Importance vs. Architectural Integrity,” Public Historian 24 no. 1(Winter 2002): 11-29. 100 See National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Rosenwald Schools Initiative,” http://www.preservationnation.org/travel-and-sites/sites/southern-region/rosenwald-schools/ (accessed July 8, 2010) and Mary S. Hoffscwelle, Preserving Rosenwald Schools (Washington: National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2003). 101 See Mary S. Hoffschwelle, The Rosenwald Schools of the American South (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2006). 102 Erick Eckholm, “Black Schools Restored as Landmarks,” New York Times, January 14, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/us/15schools.html?_r=1 (accessed July 8, 2010). 103 Wellman, “The Underground Railroad and the National Register of Historic Places,” 23. 201

Much of the scholarship and activism surrounding African American cultural

heritage sites is expressed in a tone of reclamation.104 This is further supported by

rhetoric of invisibility, and lack of public gaze.105 These trends are also true for sites

commemorating women’s or immigrant history, as well as the history of the

underprivileged. As these school districts move forward and contemplate the fate of their

brazen 1960s and 1970s era high school designs, the rhetoric of reclamation and visibility

would serve their needs well. Instead, to a greater extent, the rhetoric is one of rejection

and shame, devoid of institutional memory that would enrich solutions to the academic,

facility, and communal challenges each school faces.

Former Congressman and Dunbar alumnus Walter Fauntroy proclaimed that there

is “nothing sadder than the loss of memory” in reference to the narrative and present

condition of Dunbar High School in Washington.106 The failure of school districts to

maintain their 1960s and 1970s era schools also produces a significant loss of memory of

cultural empowerment, avant-garde design, community political prowess, and visionary

educational policy (Figure 73). Despite the challenges of traditional preservation rubrics

of age- and aesthetic-value, as well as the tendency to privilege a national narrative over

local narrative these schools retain potential for rehabilitation as seen in the Atlanta

examples. Preservation of recent past educational facilities is not a question of whether it

104 See Gail Lee Dubrow, “Claiming Public Space for Women's History in Boston: A Proposal for Preservation, Public Art, and Public Historical Interpretation,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 13 no. 1(1992): 111-148; Dolores Hayden, “Placemaking, Preservation and Urban History,” in “Urban History in the 1980s,” special issue, Journal of Architectural Education 41 no. 3 (Spring 1988): 45-51; Elgin L. Klugh, “Reclaiming Segregation-Era, African American Schoolhouses: Building on Symbols of Past Cooperation,” Journal of Negro Education 74 no. 3(Summer 2005): 246-259; Jean Van Delinder, “Oral Histories Capturing Forgotten Moments in Civil Rights History,” in “Connections: African American History and CRM,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management 19 no. 2 (1996): 13-15. 105 See Barton, “Duality & Invisibility” and Felicia Davis “Uncovering Places of Memory: Walking Tours of Manhattan,” in Sites of Memory. 106 Walter E. Fauntroy, Remarks at the Dedication of the Dunbar Room at the Sumner School Museum and Archives, March 27, 2010, Washington, D.C. 202 can be done, but how to achieve design and programming improvements that respond to present day needs, while maintaining a sense of the recent, and sometimes controversial past.

203

Conclusion

It has been said that our monuments lie completely outside our conscious efforts to make them; that in fact they are those engineering feats that were made with no other thought in mind than getting a job done. If we take that other meaning of monumentality: “The objects and spaces which best reflect the peak accomplishments of any given culture or era,” this makes, in our case, complete sense. This would of course bring into the realm of monumentality our rockets, planes, our dams, bridges and highways, or what some wag referred to as our Colossus of Roads. Neil Welliver, 1967

We don’t want a monument or an architectural landmark that people will drive miles to see. We just want a school.

Charles F. Kelley, first selectman New Canaan, CT, 1967

There can be doubt that the schools discussed in this investigation were built as monuments. Educators and administrators united around the rallying cry of “flexibility” while architects were intensely concerned with issues of program and monumental expression. The schools were monuments to their respective communities, to the city, and to education.

By the time the urban crisis schools in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Washington were built a new definition of monumental was emerging, one that owed its growing popularity to architects Paul Rudolph and most significantly, Louis Kahn. Landscape artist Neil Welliver stated in 1967 that monumentality had numerous characteristics, including the essence of being “noble and magnificent.” He also declared that the successful creation of a monument depended on three “elemental considerations” – those of site, materiality, and size.1 For our purposes, these elements made the schools discussed herein prototypes of the monumental in the 1960s and 1970s. They combined

1 Neil Welliver, “Monumentality,” Perspecta 11 (1967): 24. 204

innovative materials and framing systems that were a rejection of classical vocabulary in

an attempt at economy, and, in later designs, monolithic grandeur.

The appeal of this form of monumental educational architecture did not always

transfer across socio-cultural lines, as seen in the objection of the proposed Rudolph

design in New Canaan, Connecticut. Charles F. Kelly, a council member in the town,

was a vocal opponent of a proposed school design by the famed architect. His argument

illustrated a different perspective on the relationship of public high schools and

monumentality than was seen in distressed inner city communities.2 For the residents of

New Canaan, whose school board had selected Paul Rudolph as a joint architect on the

project of their new high school, the idea of having a landmark in their backyard was less

than appealing. This contrast is indicative of the drastically different mindset and socio-

cultural considerations that existed between urban and suburban communities, poor and

wealthy, black and white, in the design and construction of their high schools. Rudolph-

inspired designs were praised in predominately black communities for bringing an

elevated status to the neighborhoods. That set of values did not transfer to areas that

were more stable financially, and that did not have to fight the battles of concentrated

poverty, urban renewal, and unrest.

In November 2009 I sat in on a planning meeting of an architectural firm engaged

in the competition conducted by the Washington Office of Public Education Facilities

Modernization for the re-design of Dunbar High School. The group around the table consisted of community leaders: clergy, after-school program administrators, educators,

historians, preservationists, and “old Dunbar” alumni. We discussed the nature of the

1916 design of the building, the proud and positive associations it had in the community,

2 William Borders, “Architect Quits School Project,” New York Times, February 1, 1967, 41. 205

the ways history was reflected in it, and the demolition of the older building for the open-

plan design. Little time was spent on discussing the salient characteristics of the current

building built in 1977. Most of the participants gathered around the table agreed there were none. I made it a point to mention the fabulous view the cafeteria floor afforded of the dome of the Capitol to the south and Howard University Founders’ Library to the north, and the powerful symbolism in those connections.

During the discussion about the design for the school, an architect mentioned that the idea of monumentality resonated in the alumni remarks at a public dedication of the

Paul Laurence Dunbar room at the Sumner School Museum and Archives several weeks prior. He asked those present at the planning meeting how could the architects evoke and perpetuate the monumental qualities of the 1916 structure without replicating the design.

What was not discussed was how the quest for monumentality was one of the governing principles behind all incarnations of Dunbar, from the original M Street building to the

1916 building to the 1977 open-plan school. The architect of each version of the school

building was focused on creating a monumental artifice to evoke feelings of wonder and hope in students, faculty, administrators, and the larger community. The quest for monumentality also drove the design of the urban crisis schools in Atlanta, Philadelphia,

and Washington. Yet the fashion of contemporary times now dictates that the creations

reflect failed idealism, and that the schools must be re-invented for the twenty-first century version of monumentality.

In December 2010 the new design for Paul Laurence Dunbar High School by the team of architecture firms Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn Architects-Engineers and

Moody-Nolan Architects was revealed (Figure 74). The project, which pays homage to

206

the historicity of the 1916 building, has an estimated budget of $100 million.3 The

school is proposed to open in the 2013-2014 school year on the very corner of the campus

site where the 1916 building had once stood – in the location of the present day football

field (Figure 75). The Dunbar school design has large expanses of glass on the exterior

and, similar to the new design for the Woodson High School, the majority of the edifice

barely rises over three-stories high. Historical elements are embedded within the Dunbar design; quotes from and profiles of historic alumni appear throughout the interior, and the school is oriented to engage the historic Armstrong High School building (Figure 76).

Additionally, the Dunbar school is crafted to be a green, sustainable building like the new

Woodson design, which received a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental

Design) gold certified rating.

Students deserve proper environments in which to learn and mature; however, the

majority of the urban crisis schools in this survey were in disrepair. They were

unrelentingly hostile environments in which to study as early as the 1990s. The bulk of

the blame for these conditions rests with the city and school districts. Complete neglect

for the maintenance of such technologically advanced buildings led to their physical

demise, and created a situation in which students felt antagonistic towards their learning

environments. They acted out against the schools by vandalizing the buildings that were

meant to be their havens from outside distractions. Immediate change was necessitous

for the schools to remain vital components of their communities. The closure of William

Penn, however, and the demolition and total redesign of Woodson and Dunbar leads to a

situation in which educators, city administrators and architects are recreating the wheel

3 Bill Turque, “New Dunbar Design Unveiled,” Washington Post, December 14, 2010 http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcschools/2010/12/new_dunbar_design_unveiled.html (accessed January 26, 2011). 207

for educational innovation. Thirty to forty years from now, they will have to answer

some of the same building maintenance questions and concerns they are currently facing.

Furthermore, the cycle of creation, demolition, and recreation of these schools renders a significant stagnation of the institutional memory that is of utmost importance for educational facilities. Issues that may appear trivial, such as the now irrelevant opening stanza of the Howard D. Woodson high school alma mater that salutes the

“Tower of Power,” are part and parcel of the unique cultural identity of the school building that has been lost. A 2008 article in the Washington City Paper addressed this issue after the Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of Washington public schools, closed twenty-three schools that year. Nancye Suggs, archivist of the Sumner School Museum and Archives, scrambled to salvage school memorabilia to hold in perpetuity.4 Suggs

emphasized that the history of the schools was what created community in the city, and

that the memories were important not only for the individuals who once roamed school

halls, but also to inform the decisions that will affect future generations of students.

4 Ruth Samuelson, “Class Pictures,” Washington City Paper, July 25, 2008, 22-28. 208

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“Schools,” Architectural Record 114 (September 1953): 172-201

“Schools,” Architectural Record 120 (July 1956): 149-179

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“Schools Within Schools,” Progressive Architecture 43 (June 1962): 118-131

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Scott, Stanley S., “Blocks Of Slums In Summer Hill, Vine City, Buttermilk Bottom, House Minority,” Atlanta Daily World, March 6, 1963

------,“Student Comments Express Pride, Appreciation For New Structure,” Atlanta Daily World, April 24, 1963, 1

Self, Robert O., American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003)

Shelley, E.F. and Company, “An Educational System for the Seventies. Revised Edition. Interim Report,” National Center for Educational Research and Development (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Housing, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, 1968)

Shiffer, Rebecca A., “The Recent Past,” in “Preserving the Recent Past,” special issue, Cultural Resource Management18 no. 8 (1995)

Smith, Joel W., “Board To Name New High School For Prof. Harper,” Atlanta Daily World, June 14, 1960, 1

------, “Imposing Harper High To Open Doors Jan. 3,” Atlanta Daily World, December 30, 1962

Sosnouski, Amy, “Visualizing Normality: Iconology and Symbolism in United States Schools,” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2003)

Sowell, Thomas, “Black Excellence – The Case of Dunbar High School,” Metropolitan Washington Examiner, March 1975: 8, 10

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Stoops, Nicole S., A Half-Century of Learning: Historical Statistics on Educational Attainment in the United States, 1940 to 2000 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 2000), http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/education/introphct41.html (accessed February 18, 2008)

Sugrue, Thomas J., The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005)

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“Three Prototypes in One School,” Architectural Forum 113 (July 1960): 120-23

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------, “No Eggcrate, This…” Washington Post, March 27, 1971, C1

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Appendix: Illustrations

Figure 1. Preston Willis Search image of the school park concept. (The Corde Corporation, “The Education Park,” Report to the School District of Philadelphia, January 1967, 1, Series 772-6, General Pamphlet Collection, Urban Archives, Temple University).

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Figure 2. Ideal community school and its related institutions. (Edward A. Campbell, “New Spaces and Places for Learning,” School Review 68, no. 3 [Autumn 1960]: 351).

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Figure 3. University City High School was constructed in West Philadelphia (Section D), William Penn High School in Lower North Philadelphia (Section E), and Martin Luther King Jr. High School in West Oak Lane (Section H), the three planning analysis sections with the highest percentage of blacks in Philadelphia. (Philadelphia Board of Education, “Desegregation Resource Handbook,” November 1974, 6, Series 772-10, General Pamphlet Collection, Urban Archives, Temple University).

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Figure 4. Metropolitan plan for desegregation. (Philadelphia Board of Education, “Desegregation Resource Handbook,” November 1974, 16, Series 772-10, General Pamphlet Collection, Urban Archives, Temple University).

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Figure 5. Tudor School, Islington Green, London, England. (John W. McLeod and Richard J. Passatino, Urban Schools in Europe: A Study Tour of Five Cities [New York: Educational Facilities Laboratories, 1968], 31).

Figure 6. Charles L. Harper High School, Atlanta, Georgia. Toombs, Amisano, & Wells, architects; 1961-1962, altered (Atlanta Board of Education, “Progress Toward a Better Environment for Learning,” [1962], 5, Atlanta Public Schools Archives).

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Figure 7. Frederick Douglass High School, Atlanta, Georgia. Aeck Associates, architects; 1965-1968, altered 2002-2003 (Douglass High School Yearbook Polaris, 1971, 13. Atlanta Public Schools Archives).

Figure 8. Architect’s rendering of Douglass High School with the “Vine City” neighborhood name, reflecting the original intent of the school to alleviate educational needs in that neighborhood. However this view and subsequent renderings in the 1965 report are all situated at the Hightower and Simpson Road site. (Atlanta Board of Education, Superintendent’s Report: Buildings and Grounds December 13, 1965, 33).

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Figure 9. Howard D. Woodson High School, Washington, D.C. McLeod, Ferrara, & Ensign, architects; 1965-72, demolished 2008 (Washingtoniana Division, Martin Luther King Jr. Library).

Figure 10. Image capturing the monumental essence of the Woodson High School design shortly after the school was constructed. (Howard D. Woodson High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.). 228

Figure 11. Ceremonial gathering at Woodson High School, most likely the initial dedication of the building or homecoming festivities. (Howard D. Woodson High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.).

Figure 12. Plan for Southwest Junior High School, Albert Lea, Minnesota. Bernard J. Hein and Hammel & Green, Inc., architects. (Architectural Forum 113 [July 1960]: 121).

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Figure 13. Plan for White Plains Senior High School that denotes potential areas of future expansion in the “sub-school” format. White Plains, New York. Perkins & Will, architects, Engelhardt, Engelhardt, Leggett & Cornell, educational consultants. (Progressive Architecture 43 [June 1962]: 120).

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Figure 14. Study for a “Deployable School.” Elementary School Project, Sommerset County, New Jersey. Robert Martin Engelbrecht, architect. (Architectural Record [February 1963]: 174).

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Figure 15. Plan of Harper High School. (Atlanta Board of Education, “Progress Toward a Better Environment for Learning,” [1962], 7, Atlanta Public Schools Archives).

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Figure 16. Douglass High School second floor plan. (Atlanta Board of Education, Superintendent’s Report: Buildings and Grounds December 13, 1965, 37).

Figure 17. Douglass High School third floor plan. (Atlanta Board of Education, Superintendent’s Report: Buildings and Grounds December 13, 1965, 38).

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Figure 18. University City High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. H2L2, architects; 1967-1971. (Evening Bulletin Photographic Collection, Urban Archives, Temple University).

Figure 19. University City High School ground floor plan. (H2L2 Architects, “University City High,” October 1967, 6, Accession 350 Series 6: Public Education, Box 22, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University).

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Figure 20. University City High School first floor plan. (H2L2 Architects, “University City High,” October 1967, 7, Accession 350 Series 6: Public Education, Box 22, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University).

Figure 21. University City High School second floor plan. (H2L2 Architects, “University City High,” October 1967, 8, Accession 350 Series 6: Public Education, Box 22, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University). 235

Figure 22. Interior courtyard of University City High School. (Evening Bulletin Photographic Collection, Urban Archives, Temple University).

Figure 23. University City High School site plan. (H2L2 Architects, “University City High,” October 1967, 8, Accession 350 Series 6: Public Education, Box 22, West Philadelphia Corporation Papers, Urban Archives, Temple University).

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Figure 24. A School for 50 Pupils Aged 5 to 11 Years at Finmere, Oxfordshire. (Central Advisory Council for Education, Children and their Primary Schools [London: HMSO, 1967], 396 http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/plowden/plowden1-28.html [accessed January 18, 2011]).

Figure 25. Q-Spaces designed to replace traditional learning furniture as school interiors became increasingly more flexible. While the new furniture was intended for school designs such as Dunbar’s, it was not adopted at the school. (Edward A. Campbell, “New Spaces and Places for Learning,” School Review, 68 no. 3. [Autumn 1960]: 349). 237

Figure 26. William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mitchell/Giurgola, architects; 1965-74. (Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania).

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Figure 27. William Penn High School first floor plan. (“William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1975,” Parametro 9 no. 71 [November 1978]: 51).

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Figure 28. William Penn High School interior with semi-private carrels in academic house cluster. (Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania).

Figure 29. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C. Bryant & Bryant, architects; 1977. (Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.).

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Figure 30. Section view of Dunbar High School. (Bryant & Bryant, Preliminary Submission for Dunbar Senior High School Replacement, n.d., 31. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.).

Figure 31. Dunbar High School third mezzanine west plan. (Washington Board of Education Division of Buildings and Grounds, Dunbar Senior High School, April 1977, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.). 241

Figure 32. Dunbar High School fourth floor east plan. (Washington Board of Education Division of Buildings and Grounds, Dunbar Senior High School, April 1977, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.).

Figure 33. Dunbar High School fourth floor west plan. (Washington Board of Education Division of Buildings and Grounds, Dunbar Senior High School, April 1977, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.). 242

Figure 34. Dunbar High School fourth mezzanine east plan. (Washington Board of Education Division of Buildings and Grounds, Dunbar Senior High School, April 1977, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.).

Figure 35. Original design of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School with proposed terraces that were later omitted. (Bryant & Bryant, Preliminary Submission for Dunbar Senior High School Replacement, n.d., 1. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.). 243

Figure 36. Interior of Dunbar High School. (Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.).

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Figure 37. Frederick Douglass High School ten year anniversary yearbook recalling the national turmoil during the time of the school’s 1968 opening. (Douglass High School Yearbook Polaris, 1978, 4-5. Atlanta Public Schools Archives). 245

Figure 38. Detail of Woodson High School pour-in-place concrete wall, June 2008. (Photo by author).

Figure 39. Woodson High School, sculptural quality of concrete and process of construction laid bare, June 2008. (Photo by author). 246

Figure 40. Harper High School, low and “imposing” roofline. (Harper High School Yearbook 1965, 94, Atlanta Public Schools Archives).

Figure 41. Students sitting under low-hanging roof during leisure time. (Harper High School Yearbook 1965, Table of Contents Yearbook, Atlanta Public Schools Archive).

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Figure 42. Boundaries of University City Renewal Area. (Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, Annual Report [1961], 21, Pamphlets Collection Annual Reports, Box 68, Urban Archives, Temple University).

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Figure 43. The “ghosts” of Vine City. (Reese Cleghorn, “The Haunters and the Haunted,” Atlanta Magazine [July 1967]: 34).

Figure 44. Buttermilk Bottom, James H. Malone. (Flickr user jimalone http://www.flickr.com/photos/results/2888200161/ [accessed January 27, 2011]). 249

Figure 45. Ruins of a store in Washington, D.C. destroyed during the riots that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 16, 1968. Warren K. Leffler, photographer. (U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress).

Figure 46. Washington riot aftermath, photograph showing a soldier standing guard at the intersection of Seventh and M streets, NW. April 8, 1968. Warren K. Leffler, photographer. (U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress). 250

Figure 47. M Street School (predecessor to Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, later Perry Elementary School), Washington, D.C. Office of the Building Inspector, U.S. Corps of Engineers, architects; 1890-91, altered (Washingtoniana Division, Martin Luther King Jr. Library).

Figure 48. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Washington, D.C. Snowden Ashford, architect; 1916, demolished 1977 (Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Open House [April 1979], 4, Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.) 251

Figure 49. Newspaper caricature by artist Bill Garner of debate between Dunbar alumni and the Washington Board of Education. (Washington Star, March 28, 1974, A18).

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Figure 50. Site plan for new 1977 Dunbar High School. (Bryant & Bryant, Preliminary Submission for Dunbar Senior High School Replacement, n.d., 10. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.).

Figure 51. Deteriorated condition of Woodson High School in June 2008, after the final academic year at the school had ended. (Photo by author). 253

Figure 52. Woodson High School sign with remaining aluminum letters, the rest had fallen off while the school was in use and never repaired, June 2008. (Photo by author).

Figure 53. Busted pipe leakage in Woodson High School bathroom, Darrow Montgomery, photographer. (Mike DeBonis, “End of an Error,” Washington City Paper, February 20, 2008 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34603/end-of-an-error [accessed January 26, 2011]). 254

Figure 54. Abandoned Woodson High School swimming pool, Darrow Montgomery, photographer. (Mike DeBonis, “End of an Error,” Washington City Paper, February 20, 2008 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/34603/end-of-an-error [accessed January 26, 2011]).

Figure 55. December 2008 demolition of Woodson High School. (Flickr user dullshick http://www.flickr.com/photos/dullshick/3084095050/ [accessed January 27, 2011]).

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Figure 56. William Penn High School broken window, January 2011. (Photo by author).

Figure 57. Rear view of William Penn High School fenced off main academic building, January 2011. (Photo by author).

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Figure 58. Front elevation of new design for Howard D. Woodson High School, expected completion 2013. Cox, Graae & Spack and SHW Group, architects. (Government of the District of Columbia Office of Public Education Facilities Management, “2010 Master Facilities Plan – H. D. Woodson High School,” 1, http://opefm.dc.gov/pdf/master_facility_plan/Woodson_High_School.pdf [accessed January 27, 2011]).

Figure 59. Graphic showing Woodson in neighborhood context. Note the “green” roof to catch and recycle rain water. (Government of the District of Columbia Office of Public Education Facilities Management, “2010 Master Facilities Plan – H. D. Woodson High School,” 2, http://opefm.dc.gov/pdf/master_facility_plan/Woodson_High_School.pdf [accessed January 27, 2011]).

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Figure 60. Front elevation of Harper-Archer Middle School in Atlanta, May 2008. (Photo by author).

Figure 61. Front elevation of Harper-Archer Middle School, May 2008. (Photo by author).

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Figure 62. Frederick Douglass High School in Atlanta after 2004 renovations showing added fenestration on all sides of building, May 2008. (Photo by author).

Figure 63. Douglass High School south elevation, May 2008. (Photo by author). 259

Figure 64. Douglass High School auditorium, May 2008. (Photo by author).

Figure 65. Douglass High School auditorium on left and gymnasium in background past bridge and courtyard, May 2008 (Photo by author).

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Figure 66. Dunbar High School in deteriorated condition, August 2010. (Photo by author).

Figure 67. Paint covering graffiti inside Dunbar High School. Temporary wall constructed to add structure to open-plan design with the number 7 demarking floor level, August 2010. (Photo by author).

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Figure 68. Interior ramps of Dunbar High School now cut off from classroom space creating extremely dark spaces in the center of the building, August 2010. (Photo by author).

Figure 69. Students showing school pride taking photograph in front of Woodson High School sign, late 1980s or early 1990s. (Howard D. Woodson High School Papers, Sumner School Archives, Washington, D.C.). 262

Figure 70. Main façade of new Dunbar High School design, scheduled for completion 2013. Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut & Kuhn and Moody-Nolan, architects. (Government of the District of Columbia Office of Public Education Facilities Management, “Dunbar Senior High School Concept Design,” 2, http://www.theadagency.com/opefm/DunbarHS_PressBoards.pdf [accessed January 27, 2011]).

Figure 71. Site plan for new Dunbar High School design. (Government of the District of Columbia Office of Public Education Facilities Management, “Dunbar Senior High School Concept Design,” 6 http://www.theadagency.com/opefm/DunbarHS_PressBoards.pdf [accessed January 27, 2011]). 263

Figure 72. Dunbar High School armory concept design. (Government of the District of Columbia Office of Public Education Facilities Management, “Dunbar Senior High School Concept Design,” 3 http://www.theadagency.com/opefm/DunbarHS_PressBoards.pdf [accessed January 27, 2011]).

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