First Class

by Alison Stewart

  The challenge for the firm, aside from DC politics, was that the new facility needed to be ready before the old school could be razed, which was something the architects fully expected would happen. According to the Bryant and Bryant plans, Old Dunbar would have to go. The board of education and the National Capital Planning Commission signed off on the final site and building plans on January 4, 1973.

  It seemed like a fait accompli until a former Dunbar French teacher said, Arrêt! Mary Hundley and her supporters, who opposed Dunbar’s demolition, had two things on their side: bad accounting and a fierce command of the English language.

  1974

  The accounting issue became clear almost immediately. In mid January 1974, Board of Education President Marion Barry received a letter from the director of the general services office with bad news—about $1.9 million worth. The amount of money approved by Congress for the project was simply not enough. The budget for the new Dunbar school project was $17,353,000. The lowest of the bids submitted by six different construction firms was $19,493,000. That bid covered everything on the wish list: the building of the new school, the interior amenities, the tennis courts, basketball courts, track, football field, stadium and electronic scoreboard, plus a contingency amount of $600,000.

  Given the approved budget, there was only enough funding to cover the basics, the building and basketball and tennis courts. The director stated clearly, “The demolition of the original building, the building of the stadium, and the track cannot now be awarded.” The catch was that the $19.4 million bid was only guaranteed for the next sixty days. And it could easily climb. The city council needed to find the money fast, and the best way to do that would be to shave money off existing, approved finances rather than risk the time and effort to get congressional approval of a whole new budget. The director of general services wrote to Barry, “We will initiate reprogramming action to obtain the necessary funds.”

  A few weeks later at a board of education meeting, the chair of the Dunbar Community Committee for the new school knew something was up. He said the committee wanted answers to the following questions:

  When could the groundbreaking be expected?

  Had the contracts for construction been negotiated?

  Had all support facilities such as gas, water, electricity, and sewage been completed?

  What channels are available to the New Dunbar Committee for seeking up-to-date information?

  In the event that they run into a money problem, were there other funds available?

  Had the architects, Bryant and Bryant, completed all contractual obligations so far as plans were concerned for the new building?

  The stenographer taking down notes said the questions would be transcribed and presented to the administration in the morning.

  This glitch in the financing gave the “save our school” faction time to show the world the fine work of the English teachers at Dunbar. A legion of excellent and extremely opinionated writers unleashed a letter-writing campaign. Over two hundred letters were sent to civic leaders, the mayor’s office, and the planning commission. Mary Hundley personally wrote to all of the District’s television and radio stations and newspapers, and she activated Dunbar alumni groups. The letters poured in from alumni.

  Former Tuskegee Airman Dr. Roscoe Brown, now the director of the Institute for Afro-American Affairs at New York University, wrote that he was shocked and dismayed at the thought of Dunbar’s demise.

  As one of the literally thousands of Dunbar graduates who gained their personal competence and sense of Black pride and awareness from their years at Dunbar, I sincerely hope that this decision will be reconsidered. I am certain that the city planner in the District of Columbia can find alternate plans to avoid the destruction of this landmark of Black education.

  From Henry Robinson, PhD, professor at Morgan State College:

  If it is at all possible to save the building, please let’s do so. If it is only possible to save the main entrance, incorporate it into the new building, then I believe we should work for that goal. To completely destroy an historical landmark like the Dunbar High School runs counter to all the values and tradition, which we alumni have been taught. Would you please reconsider the decision, which I understand has already been taken by the District of Columbia Establishment to demolish our alma mater?

  Dr. Montague Cobb, who was about to assume the role of NAACP president, called it an unbelievable paradox and a terrible contradiction that Dunbar would be torn down.

  The government of the District of Columbia, whose officials are now mostly black, should be moving to destroy the only symbol of black excellence in the City, one unique in the country and in the world.

  And he offered a comparison, without irony but with a dose of hyperbole.

  Would the Greeks allow the destruction of the Parthenon? … In the People’s Republic of China all the ancient buildings of the Forbidden City of Peking are intact and well maintained and every Chinese child is made familiar with the whole range of achievements of the oldest continuous civilization in the world, along with the accomplishment since the Revolution of 1949. Also, St. Basil’s off Red Square in Moscow has not been torn down just because it represents a Christian Institution.

  The historical significance of the school was impossible to dismiss. Even those who wanted the new football field and stadium acknowledged it. But there was something else to this fight, something more emotional that would cause each side to dig in. It was the twisted assumptions of superiority and inferiority that pushed people apart and was causing strife for black Washingtonians. The nasty, gooey issue of intraracial class politics was revealed in a letter from a representative of the class of 1934.

  People new to the Washington scene cannot appreciate the tradition and sentiment associated with Dunbar High School…. At a time when Blacks are searching for their roots in Africa, we seem to be hell bent on obliterating a portion of our American Black heritage. The architectural beauty of Dunbar High School alone is enough to have it declared a landmark. Unlike the European tradition, reverence for the past does not seem to be a part of the American value system.

  The old guard had grown up in segregation when the black community, on some level, was one. They still thought of Dunbar as a beacon of possibility for all black people. They were proud of the fact that despite the law and despite all notions that black children couldn’t learn, not only had they learned, they had excelled. The letter referred to “our American Black heritage” (emphasis mine).

  But those identified in the letter as “new” might just as well have considered Dunbar’s past as part of someone else’s heritage, not their own. They had not been included in the pre-1954 bubble around Dunbar. Their educations had suffered from their parents only being allowed to attend school for two or three hours a day, if they could attend school at all. For a large swath of DC circa the mid-1970s—when its 71 percent black population earned it the nickname Chocolate City—Dunbar seemed to represent parts of black American history that should be forgotten: segregation and even elitism. “A reservoir of nostalgia for a segment of the D.C. populace” is what the new superintendent of the DC schools, Barbara Sizemore, wrote about Dunbar in a letter to the board of education.19

  Mary Hundley’s response: “Don’t listen to that Barbara Sizemore, she’s only been here four months.”20

  The Washington Star News sided with the preservationists. It called upon the city council to be imaginative and show a little effort toward investigating possibilities other than demolition. But it was the cartoon accompanying the editorial that captured the moment. It was of a conservatively dressed black teacher, a lady of a certain age, wearing sensible shoes and a demure dress with the words “Dunbar Alumni” hidden in the dress’s pattern. She holds a ruler in one hand, and with the other hand grabs the ear of a large man, dragging him along. The man has a small Afro and wears a leisure suit with platform shoes. He holds a folder that reads, TEAR DOWN DUNBAR HIGH SCHOOL, and the wor
ds SCHOOL BOARD are on his jacket. The caption underneath is assigned to the older teacher. It reads “You’ll thank me for this one day!”

  A week before the DC council would vote on whether or not to “reprogram” funds, Mrs. Hundley pulled out her big gun, a former student of hers who was by then a US senator. After a series of very lovely and carefully worded letters between the former teacher and pupil, Senator Brooke said he would be glad to weigh in on the issue. Showing his considerable deftness and walking a fine line, Ed Brooke, the alum, typed a personal note on the letterhead of Edward W. Brooke, the senator, and sent it off to the mayor of Washington, DC.

  Dear Walter,

  I am sure Mary Hundley has already contacted you in her efforts to save Dunbar High School from demolition.

  As a Dunbar graduate, I would like to lend my voice to Mary’s in the hope that a consideration be given to designating the old building as an historic site and incorporate the structure in plans for the new school. While I would not like to deprive future Dunbar students of a football field, I would hope that an alternative site for the field could at least be explored. Dunbar is so rich in the history of the District of Columbia and Black Americans that it should not be demolished without a full hearing.

  I would most appreciate your thoughts on the fate of Dunbar and ways we might be able to spare its apparent fate.

  With warm regards,

  Sincerely,

  Ed Brooke

  And just to make sure the point stuck, Senator Brooke’s colleague, Senator Ted Kennedy, took up the cause for a moment. On March 27, 1974, Senator Kennedy entered into the official congressional record a newspaper article about the Dunbar demolition issue.

  “Mr. President, I would like to enter in the record an account,” said Senator Kennedy addressing Senate President Gerald Ford. “A proposal to replace one of the oldest high schools in Washington, D.C., Dunbar High School, [which] has become a historical landmark in the eyes of many Washingtonians because it serves as the training ground for so many men and women who are today prominent Americans.” Not once during his short speech did the senator mention race.

  On April 1, 1974, the DC City Council rejected the “reprogramming” of $1.4 million to demolish Dunbar. Three of the nine federally appointed council members were Dunbar alumni. They, along with a deluge of correspondence, persuaded the other six members that Dunbar I was worth saving in some capacity. However, at least one of the council members wasn’t sure they had done the right thing. Sterling Tucker told the press, “The building has seen its day.”21 The council did approve the additional money to complete the building of the new school, just not the money to demolish Dunbar and build the stadium. But it was a statement made by one of the council members that nailed why there was such a harsh reaction to those who wanted to save the building. Dr. Marjorie Parker (Dunbar 1932), a council member and a lifelong Republican who had been appointed by President Nixon, said that day, “Black history, black culture, black heritage did not begin with Cornelius Green and the Green Bay Packers.”22

  But this wasn’t over. Shortly after the denial of the funds, the board of education renewed its call for the new school. Reverend Ray Kemp was chairman of the Capital Outlay Committee. A known civil rights advocate, Reverend Kemp told the board that any compromise on the design of the building at this point would be “very severe and costly.”23 Reverend Kemp had at one time gone by Dunbar every day on his way to school. “It was classic,” he said. “I would see the cheerleaders out there. Go big D. Go Red.” He was one of the progressive young idealists on the school board who wanted to do what they believed to be good things. “I thought the children needed a better facility,” he explained. “That’s it.”

  This had been a close call for the Dunbar preservationists. They couldn’t rest now. The mayor could still ask the city council to reconsider the reprogramming for the next fiscal year. Plan A was for the alumni to start researching viable alternatives for the location of the sports field. Along the way, comments like Dr. Parker’s cast them in the role of out-of-touch old people who wanted to deprive young students of their athletic field. Plan B was to formally pursue registering Dunbar I as a DC landmark. Hundley and her supporters hoped it could become a library, museum, or exam school. “I could never see any route to what they wanted that was even remotely feasible. And, by the way, no developer wanted to do anything over on First Street Northwest in those days,” remarks Bill Treanor.

  Treanor was on the board of education from 1973 to 1977, and he remembers Dunbar I being in bad shape, a rambling old structure past its prime as a facility. When he joined the board he was surprised this hadn’t all been figured out long before, given that they were on the verge of breaking ground on Dunbar II. “The only thing that was left was what to do with the old one, which should have actually been dealt with years before. It was just a testament to the paralysis of the system. They should have been tearing down the old one at the same time they were putting up the new one so they could put the fields in right away.”

  A funny thing happened during all of the commotion over this little piece of land: democracy. A month after the council’s decision to deny the funds for demolition, Washington DC’s home rule went into effect. For the first time, the current population of DC could vote and elect a city council and mayor. In various configurations and ways, up until 1973 Congress and/or the president selected the leaders of DC. Now, for the first time in DC, everyone had a voice. The majority in DC had spoken. When the new city council was elected, there was not one Dunbar graduate on it.

  There were three ways the decision about Dunbar could go. Would the DC council get its reprogrammed money, would Dunbar I gain landmark status, or would Dunbar II be completed before the problem was resolved? The answer: yes.

  Within weeks of Dunbar being designated a DC landmark, the newly elected city council approved the reprogrammed funds for fiscal year 1976. It was expected that the money would become available about the time the stadium bleachers were being installed. The elected officials believed they had won, and it was all over.

  1976

  The mayor’s office made a big mistake: it did not respond to a letter from DC’s landmark commission. Now that the building was a Category II local landmark, the commission required there to be substantive discussion about alternatives. When the government of the District of Columbia, the owner of Dunbar I, sent in its application to raze the building officially located at 1320 First Street NW, Lot 857, Square 544, the application was denied. The city was informed that officials at the DC Landmarks Commission and the State Historic Preservation Office deemed that demolition of the building would be contrary to public interest and should be delayed for 180 days so that alternatives could be discussed further.

  The State Historic Preservation Office acknowledged all the reasons the District of Columbia presented for demolishing the building: unavailability of an alternative site, cost and hardship of relocating families to provide an adequate site, cost of rehabilitation and maintenance should Old Dunbar stand, and desire to provide new academic and athletic facilities for the next generation. The official preservationist said the purpose of the six-month delay period was to afford enough time to resolve all issues. On March 23, 1976, the following was ordered:

  The State Historic Preservation Officer is of the opinion that the demolition of the building should be delayed for 180 days to permit [the official preservationist] and the professional review committee to negotiate with the owner or owners of the building and civic groups, public agencies, and interested citizens to find a means of preserving this building. Ordered: The issuance of a permit to raze is DELAYED for 180 days from the date of this order.

  At this point, the pro-demolition forces had been outwitted and out-lobbied by a group of septuagenarians who knew how to use language and litigation to sway opinion.

  As the public fight lingered on, proponents of the new school became more visible. In the papers, for every pro-preservation letter
to the editor that appeared there now seemed to be a case made for the demolition—and a case made against the legend of Old Dunbar. In one day on the Washington Star’s letters to the editor page, these three letters were printed:24

  On the last day of school I sheepishly appeared in the office of the dour Walter Smith, principal of Dunbar High School, to inform him that, out of economic necessity, I must quit school and go to work. He listened at first incredulously, then realized I was indeed serious. He began to lecture me in a fatherly way on the course I had in mind. I told him that I had had no choice; I had to help support our large family. He just shook his big black head and wished me well.

  A man who identified himself as having a wife and children who had gone to the school felt this way about good Old Dunbar.

  I am not so sure we want to preserve those traditions of segregated education and black elitism for which Dunbar stood. Many of us remember well when Dunbar was a school for the children of the black bourgeoisie when light skin and good hair and family were paramount prerequisites for admission and success. Many black kids went to other schools and “made it” also.

  And this letter came from a Granville Woodson (Dunbar 1926), who happened to be the assistant superintendent in charge of buildings and grounds for the city:

  We must remember the new Dunbar is for young people beginning their education and for the thousand more not yet born. It is not for those of us with only a few years to live. The young need and should have the best high school we can provide and not an unnecessary compromise based on dubious emotional rhetoric.