African American Schools in Dallas

Marion Butts CollectionDallas Public Library

1946Booker T. Washington School football team. This school – which developed from the old Dallas Colored High school – was named in honor of educator Booker T. Washington. It opened in 1922 at 2501 Flora and the building serves today as the arts magnet high school.

1947Texas Vocational School. This school operated for a short time after World War II to provide auto mechanic, furniture repair, and tailoring training for returning veterans. The building was located at 3922 Willow.

1947Girl Scout troop 139 in front of the B.F. Darrell Elementary School. This school was named for Benjamin Franklin Darrell, a Dallas teacher who also served as a principal at the Dallas Colored High School. The building at Hall and Fuqua opened in 1891 and closed in 1969.

1947Boy Scout troop in front of the B.F. Darrell School. Called the 9th Ward School when it first opened, the name changed to Dallas Colored High School In 1893 when high school classes were added. The school was named for Darrell in 1922.

October, 1947Pupils of Texas schools take part in a spelling contest

1949The band and pep squad at Lincoln High School. Lincoln, Dallas’ second African-American High School, opened in 1939.

1949

Two football players, nos. 50 and 64, from Lincoln High School. Lincoln’s Tigers had a reputation as a tough football team.

1949Bishop College, founded in Marshall, Texas, in 1881, moved to Dallas in 1961. This photograph shows students in the Bishop College library in Marshall.

1949Photographer Marion Butts attended Bishop College in Marshall, Texas and made a series of photographs of the school. This image shows students in the Bishop College chemistry laboratory.

1949

Marion Butts Sr. graduating from Bishop College in Marshall, Texas.

1950The Rocket Revue of Booker T. Washington High School

February 1950The 40th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America is celebrated with a flag raising ceremony at Frederick Douglass Elementary School.

1951

Girls practice cooking in this homemaking class at Lincoln High School.

1951Rev. Odom instructing a science class at Lincoln High School

1951Carrollton Colored School with teacher, Bernice Chatman, and her class. Chatman taught at the school beginning in the early 1940s and became principal in the early 1960s. She retired from the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school system in 1981. In 2004, an elementary school, the Bernice Chatman Freeman Elementary School, was named in her honor.

1952

H.S. Thompson School Brownie Troop delivers a Thanksgiving box to the home of Mr. Jasper Slow.

1952

Exterior photograph of the new addition to Booker T. Washington High School.

April 1952The mechanical arts department in the new addition at Booker T. Washington School. Students are practicing their drafting skills with a T-square.

1952Students work in the workshop, part of the new addition to Booker T. Washington High School.

April 1952The chemical laboratory in the new addition to Booker T. Washington High School.

1956Exterior view of Lincoln High School

1957Couple shows off their dance moves for an admiring circle of friends at the Colonial School's Queen's Ball. When the school opened in 1902, it served white students. In 1957 it became an African-American school. The school was renamed as the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Learning Center in 1999.

February 1960Speaking at St. John Baptist Church. Dr. George Fleming challenges Dallas citizens to raise campaign funds to bring Bishop College to Dallas.

1961Children leaving Frederick Douglass Elementary School. First called the Colored School No. 4 and located at Preston and Grand, the name of this school was changed in 1902 to honor Douglass, the great social reformer and abolitionist.

1961The outhouse “facilities” at the Frederick Douglass Elementary School.

1961

Bathroom sinks located outside at the Frederick Douglass Elementary School

January 8, 1961Moorland YMCA membership campaign breakfast; at far right is Stone Johnson, a 1960 track and field Olympian and former Madison High School student.

1962The Phyllis Wheatley Elementary School building was completed in 1930. It featured fourteen classrooms, a kitchen and lunchroom, an auditorium, and a clinic.

March 1962Melvin Manuet, Donnie Garrett, and Deborah Moore show off their Science Fair projects during Texas Public Schools Week at the Colonial School.

April 16, 1963Rotten boards at the outhouse at Eagle Ford Elementary School

January 1963View from Bonnie Road of Franklin D. Roosevelt High School under construction. Roosevelt was the first new high school for African Americans constructed in Dallas since 1939.

1963The seventh grade class at St. Peter’s Academy included Marion Butts, Jr., son of the photographer.

1963Booker T. Washington High School drill team, cheerleaders, baton twirlers, and drum majors pose in front of the school with their trophies.

1963Operetta at St. Peter’s Academy. The Catholic school, located in 1963 at 2018 Allen, offered a quality alternative to the segregated school system in Dallas.

1965George Washington Carver Elementary School students in line for bus. Built to meet demand from baby-boomers born after World War II, the large West Dallas school opened in 1954.

1969Faculty at Joseph J. Rhoads Learning Center. This elementary school was formerly the Lagow Elementary School for whites located at 4401 Second Ave. It became Rhoads Elementary School in 1955, the first school in Dallas to change from a “white” to a “Negro” school as more African American families moved into the area around Fair Park.

October 15, 1971The Bishop College marching band and drill team practice at Texas Stadium in preparation for a game against Texas Southern University. It was the first time that Bishop played Texas Stadium.

April 10, 1968

Faculty, staff and students walk toward the Bishop College Chapel and a memorial service for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.