Washington Times Recalls the Four-Year History of Segregation of D.C. Schools

The D.C. Times wrote a nice story this week about the refurbishing of Cardozo’s football stadium, which should be the grandest in the city by fall.

But the article turns tragicomic when reporter Amanda McClure gives a brief and off-the-mark history of the venue and the school.

The stadium was built along with the school in 1916, and hosted Central High School football games and track meets until it was renamed Cardozo in 1928. The name honors Francis Lewis Cardozo, the first black to hold administrative office in South Carolina.

Cardozo became segregated as an all-black school in 1950 but was reintegrated in 1954.

Cardozo’s current plant was in fact named Central High School—with alumni that included J. Edgar Hoover—until 1950 and was the flagship of the white portion of the city’s totally segregated school system till its dying day.

The transfer of the building, located on a hill off 13th Street NW, from all-white Central to all-black Cardozo made for one of the ugliest chapters in the ugly racial history of D.C. Contrary to what the story infers, no public high schools in this city were ever “reintegrated”—they were all-black or all-white from Day 1 until the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

But, again, no matter its history, as the story points out: Cardozo is gonna have a helluva football stadium.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 3:07 pm and is filed under History, Racism, Schools, Sports, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.