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The Legacy of Dunbar, America's First Black Public High School
By Alison Stewart, Foreword by Melissa Harris-Perry
SOCIAL SCIENCE
352 Pages, 6 x 9
Formats: PDF, EPUB, Mobipocket, Trade Paper
Trade Paper, $17.95 (CA $21.95) (US $17.95)
ISBN 9781613731765
Rights: WOR
Chicago Review Press (Aug 2015)
Lawrence Hill Books
Overview
A history of America's first black high school and an unflinching analysis of the state of urban public school education todayCombining a fascinating history of the first U.S. high school for African Americans with an unflinching analysis of urban public-school education today, First Class explores an underrepresented and largely unknown aspect of black history while opening a discussion on what it takes to make a public school successful. In 1870, in the wake of the Civil War, citizens of Washington, DC, opened the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, the first black public high school in the United States; it would later be renamed Dunbar High and would flourish despite Jim Crow laws and segregation. Dunbar attracted an extraordinary faculty: its early principal was the first black graduate of Harvard, and at a time it had seven teachers with PhDs, a medical doctor, and a lawyer. During the school’s first 80 years, these teachers would develop generations of highly educated, successful African Americans, and at its height in the 1940s and ’50s, Dunbar High School sent 80 percent of its students to college. Today, as in too many failing urban public schools, the majority of Dunbar students are barely proficient in reading and math. Journalist and author Alison Stewart—whose parents were both Dunbar graduates—tells the story of the school’s rise, fall, and possible resurgence as it looks to reopen its new, state-of-the-art campus in the fall of 2013.
Reviews
“In First Class, Alison Stewart skillfully chronicles the rise and fall of Dunbar High School, America’s first black public high school. Recalling the institution's extraordinary legacy and the lives of its accomplished alumni—her own parents included—Stewart will convince you that there’s cause for hope, and that the school’s brightest days may still be ahead.” —President Bill Clinton
“The US Army’s first black general. The first black federal judge. The first black cabinet secretary. If you pull the thread that ties together these (and so many other) pioneers in African American achievement, you find the story of Dunbar High School. Alison Stewart uncovers the hidden history of a great American institution, and shows us the moving, herculean, human effort it took to build it in the first place, and to rebuild it now. What an amazing story—what a great book.” —Rachel Maddow, author of Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, and host of The Rachel Maddow Show
“Many of the legal minds behind school desegregation learned their sense of self and sense of determination at Dunbar High School. First Class explains how Dunbar produced extraordinary men and women who could be role models for any child of any era.” —Hill Harper, actor and author of Letters to a Young Brother
“A gifted journalist, Alison Stewart tells this remarkable story with depth and insight. Meticulously researched and engagingly written, First Class does what great books should do: it finds universal meaning in particular places. In Stewart, Dunbar’s complicated life and times have found a brilliant biographer." —Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson and the White House
“First Class is first rate—the extraordinary story of a historic school and its remarkable students and teachers. With great style and real care, Alison Stewart weaves a wonderful tale of adversity, triumph, and overcoming.” —Ben Sherwood, president of ABC News
Author Biography
Alison Stewart is an award-winning journalist whose 20-year career includes anchoring and reporting for MTV, PBS, NBC News, ABC News, and CBS News. Most recently she was the host of the NPR program, The TED Radio Hour. She lives in New York City. Melissa Harris-Perry is an author, a political commentator, a television host, and a professor of political science at Tulane University. She lives in New Orleans.
