John Randolph Pinkett Sr.
Biography
John Randolph Pinkett was born on 27 Sep 1888 in Lincolnia, Fairfax County, Virginia & his parents were John Pollard Pinkett and Cecilia Beckley.
He attended M Street High School in Washington, D.C. Upon graduation he attended the Carnegie Institute and Amherst College.
He married Flaxie Holcombe.
He served as a professor at Dunbar High School.
He gained valuable business experience as a vice-president and manager of Agencies-National Benefit Life Insurance Company.
In 1932, in the midst of the the Great Depression, he established his business in a one room basement. "John R. Pinkett Inc." [1] was the first insurance and real estate firm in Washington, D.C. that was fully owned and operated by an African-American. The enterprise prospered and eventually grew to include real estate and property management. The firm was the first of its type to be admitted to the Washington Board of Trade.
He died on 19 Nov 1958 in Washington, DC,[2] and cremation was on 24 Nov 1958 at Lee's Crematory.
In 1958 his daughter Flaxie inherited his business and against all odds, helmed it successfully for the next 49 years.
Sources
- ↑ http://www.wdchumanities.org/dcdm/exhibits/show/flaxie/the-business/pinkett-business
- ↑ Obituary: "U.S., Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current"
Alabama Tribune; Publication Date: 5 Dec 1958; Publication Place: Montgomery, Alabama, USA; URL: https://www.newspapers.com/image/554096471/?article=4fdca871-509e-4415-99ff-543863fc9612&focus=0.033001542,0.34854853,0.26228717,0.49845356&xid=3355
Ancestry Record 61843 #507613817
Name: John R. Pinkett; Gender: Male; Death Age: 70; Birth Date: abt 1888; Birth Place: Lincolnia, VA.; Residence Place: Washington; Death Date: Abt 1958; Death Place: Washington; Obituary Date: 5 Dec 1958; Obituary Place: Montgomery, Alabama, USA; Newspaper Title: Alabama Tribune; Spouse: Flaxie; Child: John R. Charles A. K. Dyson Frances P. Robertson N : rris A. Dodson Flaxie M. Pinkett; Siblings: Rcscoe D. Pinkett.
- 1930 Census: "1930 United States Federal Census"
Year: 1930; Census Place: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia; Page: 16A; Enumeration District: 0228; FHL microfilm: 2340033
Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 6224 #6984508
John R Pinkett (41), married, Agheg Director, head of household in 122 V Street, N W.,, Washington, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Born in Virginia. - 1940 Census: "1940 United States Federal Census"
Year: 1940; Census Place: Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia; Roll: m-t0627-00570; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 1-508
Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 2442 #1034923
John R Pinkett (51), Manager, in Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia. Born in Virginia. - 1950 Census: "1950 United States Federal Census"
United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: 4811; Sheet Number: 6; Enumeration District: 1-1109
Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 62308 #15191161
John R Pinkett (61), married head of household in Washington, Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Born in Virginia.
Acknowledgment
- WikiTree profile Pinkett-46 was created through the import of PINKETTFAMILYTREE.ged on 16 Aug 2011.
Biography
John was born April 3, 1914 in Missouri, USA. He is the son of John Pinkett and Flaxie Holcombe.
He married Charlotte Leonora Ridgeley on August 10, 1935 in Washington, District of Columbia. He was 21 years old and she was 18.[1]
Pearl Bailey married John R Pinkett on 31 August 1948 in Clark, Nevada, United States.[2]
John was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.[3]
Sources
- ↑ "District of Columbia Marriages, 1811-1950," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V64L-DBL), John Randolph Pinkett and Charlotte Leonora Ridgeley, 10 Aug 1935; citing p. 244, Records Office, Washington D.C.; FHL microfilm 2,293,334.
- ↑ Marriage: "Nevada County Marriages, 1862-1993"
citing Marriage, Clark, Nevada, United States, Nevada State Museum and Historical Society, Las Vegas; FHL microfilm 005247197.
FamilySearch Record: QL4G-RPF7 (accessed 12 October 2022)
FamilySearch Image: 33S7-81WP-D6M Image number 00746
Pearl Bailey marriage to John R Pinkett on 31 Aug 1948 in Clark, Nevada, United States. - ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #49298834
- "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XMK1-KX5 : accessed 29 January 2021), John R Pinkett in household of John R Pinkett, Washington, Washington, District of Columbia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 228, sheet 16A, line 28, family 260, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 298; FHL microfilm 2,340,033.
- "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K737-JFC : 25 January 2020), John Pinkett in household of John R Pinkett, Tract 33, District of Columbia, Police Precinct 13, District of Columbia, District of Columbia, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 1-508, sheet 8A, line 39, family 135, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 570.
Pearl Mae Bailey (March 29, 1918 – August 17, 1990) was an American actress, singer and author.[1] After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946.[2] She received a Special Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale. Her rendition of "Takes Two to Tango" hit the top ten in 1952.[3]
In 1976, she became the first African-American to receive the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.[4] She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 17, 1988.
Early life[edit]
Bailey was born in Newport News, Virginia[1] to the Reverend Joseph James and Ella Mae Ricks Bailey.[5] When she was very young, the family moved to Washington, DC. After her parents' divorce, Bailey moved to Philadelphia to live with her mother.[6]
Bailey made her stage-singing debut at the age of 15. Her brother Bill Bailey[7] was beginning his own career as a tap dancer and suggested that she enter an amateur contest at the Pearl Theatre in Philadelphia. Bailey won and was offered $35 a week to perform there for two weeks. However, the theater closed during her engagement and she was not paid.[5] She later won a similar competition at Harlem's famous Apollo Theater and decided to pursue a career in entertainment. She was also known to have performed in the church choir at St Peter Claver Catholic Church in Brooklyn, at the behest of Msgr Bernard J. Quinn.[8]
Career[edit]
Bailey began by singing and dancing in Philadelphia's black nightclubs in the 1930s, and soon started performing in other parts of the East Coast. In 1941, during World War II, Bailey toured the country with the USO, performing for American troops. After the tour, she settled in New York. Her solo successes as a nightclub performer were followed by acts with entertainers such as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. In 1946, Bailey made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman.[9] For her performance, she won a Donaldson Award as the best Broadway newcomer. Bailey continued to tour and record albums along with her stage and screen performances. Early in the television medium, Bailey guest starred on CBS's Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town.
Female impersonator Lynne Carter credited Bailey with launching his career.[10]
In 1967, Bailey and Cab Calloway headlined an all-black cast version of Hello, Dolly! The touring version was so successful that producer David Merrick took it to Broadway, where it played to sold-out houses and revitalized the long-running musical. Bailey was given a special Tony Award for her role, and RCA Victor released a second original-cast album, the only recording of the score to have an overture written especially for the recording.
A passionate fan of the New York Mets, Bailey sang the national anthem at Shea Stadium prior to Game 5 of the 1969 World Series, and appears in the World Series highlight film showing her support for the team. She also sang the national anthem prior to Game 1 of the 1981 World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers at Yankee Stadium.
Bailey hosted her own variety series on ABC, The Pearl Bailey Show (January – May 1971), which featured many notable guests, including Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong (one of his last appearances before his death).[11]
Following her 1971 television series, she provided voices for animations such as Tubby the Tuba (1976) and Disney's The Fox and the Hound (1981). She returned to Broadway in 1975, playing the lead in an all-black production of Hello, Dolly!. In October 1975, she was invited by Betty Ford to sing for Egyptian president Anwar Sadat at a White House state dinner as part of Mideast peace initiative.[12]
She earned a degree in theology from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in 1985 at age 67.[9] It took her seven years to earn her degree.[9] At Georgetown, she was a student of the philosopher Wilfrid Desan.
Later in her career, Bailey was a fixture as a spokesperson in a series of Duncan Hines commercials, singing "Bill Bailey (Won't You Come Home)." She also appeared in commercials for Jell-O,[13] Westinghouse[14] and Paramount Chicken.
In her later years, Bailey wrote several books: The Raw Pearl (1968), Talking to Myself (1971), Pearl's Kitchen (1973) and Hurry Up America and Spit (1976). In 1975, she was appointed special ambassador to the United Nations by President Gerald Ford, a position she held under three presidents.[15][16] Her last book, Between You and Me (1989), details her experiences with higher education. On January 19, 1985, she appeared on a nationally televised broadcast gala the night before the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan. In 1988, Bailey received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Reagan.[17]
Personal life[edit]
Bailey went through a number of failed marriages in her earlier adult years. She married John Randolph Pinkett, either her third or fourth husband, when she was 30 years old, and divorced him four years later, accusing him of physical abuse.[4][18]
On November 19, 1952, Bailey married jazz drummer Louie Bellson in London. They remained married until her death nearly 38 years later in 1990. Bellson was six years Bailey's junior and white. Interracial couples were rare at that time, and Bellson's father was reportedly opposed to the marriage because of Bailey's race.[18]
They later adopted a son, Tony, in the mid-1950s. A daughter, Dee Dee Jean Bellson,[19] was born April 20, 1960. Tony Bellson died in 2004. Dee Dee Bellson died on July 4, 2009, at the age of 49, five months after her father, who died on February 14.[citation needed]
Bailey, a Republican, was appointed by President Richard Nixon as the nation's "Ambassador of Love" in 1970. She attended several meetings of the United Nations and later appeared in a campaign ad for President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election.[20]
She was awarded the Bronze Medallion in 1968, the highest award conferred upon civilians by New York City.[citation needed]
Bailey was a close friend of actress Joan Crawford.[21] In 1969, Crawford and Bailey joined fellow friend Gypsy Rose Lee in accepting a USO award. That same year, Bailey was recognized as USO's woman of the year.[22][23] Upon Crawford's death in May 1977, Bailey spoke of Crawford as her sister and sang a hymn at her funeral.[21][24] American socialite Perle Mesta was another of Bailey's close friends.[25] In the waning days of Mesta's life, Bailey visited Mesta frequently and sang hymns for her.[26][27]
Death[edit]
Bailey died at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia on August 17, 1990.[4] An autopsy confirmed the death was caused by the narrowing of a coronary artery.[28] Bailey had suffered from heart problems for over thirty years.[4]
Bailey is buried at Rolling Green Memorial Park in West Chester, Pennsylvania.[29]
Remembrances[edit]
The television show American Dad! features Pearl Bailey High School.[30]
The 1969 song "We Got More Soul" by Dyke and the Blazers includes Bailey in its roster of icons.[31]
A dress owned by Bailey is at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.[32]
A library in her hometown of Newport News, Virginia is named after her.[7]
Performances[edit]
Film
Television
| Theater
|
Discography[edit]
Year | Single | Chart positions | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
"US Retail Sales" | "US Disc Jockey" | "US Juke Box" | US R&B | |||
1946 | "Fifteen Years (And I'm Still Serving Time)" (with Mitchell Ayres) | – | – | – | 4 | |
- Pearl Bailey Entertains (1950) and 1953
- Birth of the Blues (1952)
- Cultured Pearl (1952)
- I'm with You (1953)
- Say Si Si (1953)
- Around the World with Me (1954)
- Carmelina (1955)
- The Intoxicating Pearl Bailey (1956)
- The One and Only Pearl Bailey Sings (1956)
- Gems by Pearl Bailey (1958)
- Porgy & Bess, original motion picture soundtrack (1959) (Grammy Award winner)
- Pearl Bailey A-Broad (1959)
- Pearl Bailey Sings for Adults Only (1959)
- Pearl Bailey Plus Margie Anderson Singing the Blues (1960?)
- More Songs for Adults Only (1960)
- For Adult Listening (1960)
- Naughty but Nice (1960)
- Songs of the Bad Old Days (1960)
- Pearl Bailey Sings the Songs of Harold Arlen (1961)
- Come On, Let's Play with Pearlie Mae (1962)
- Happy Sounds (1962)
- All About Good Little Girls and Bad Little Boys (1963)
- C'est La Vie (1963)
- Les Poupées de Paris (1964)
- Songs By James Van Heusen (1964)
- The Risque World of Pearl Bailey (1964)
- For Women Only (1965)
- The Jazz Singer (1965)
- Hello, Dolly! (1967 Broadway cast)
- After Hours (1969)
- Pearl's Pearls (1971)
Bibliography[edit]
- The Raw Pearl (1968) (autobiography)
- Talking to Myself (1971) (autobiography)
- Pearl's Kitchen: An Extraordinary Cookbook (1973)
- Duey's Tale (1975) (Photos and Design by Arnold Skolnick)
- Hurry Up America and Spit (1976)
- Between You and Me: A Heartfelt Memoir on Learning, Loving, and Living (1989)
Remembering Dunbar
Amherst College and African American Education in
Washington, DC
Matthew Alexander Randolph
Charles Drew Memorial Cultural House, the only dormitory on Amherst College’s campus
named after a black alumnus, reminds passersby of Amherst’s extensive African American
history.1 Charles Drew’s lifesaving innovations in blood preservation contributed to the
Allied effort during World War II, and Drew was also an unforgettable football and track
legend during his Amherst days. In 1987, Charles Drew Memorial Cultural House officially
became a themed residence hall at Amherst as a “testament to [Drew’s] continuous inspi-
ration and example.” 2 Beyond Drew as an individual is the larger story of a long-standing
connection between Amherst and his black public high school in Washington, DC.
Across the twentieth century, Amherst graduated more students from Paul Laurence
Dunbar High School than any other college outside of Washington, DC.3 Dunbar men
frequently entered Amherst in pairs or larger cohorts. They included men who would go
on to become household names in African American history such as William Hastie, a
groundbreaking federal judge, and Montague Cobb, a president of the National Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
For some class years, Dunbar students made up the majority, if not the entirety, of black
students attending Amherst. Harold Wade (class of 1968) wrote in his posthumously pub-
lished Black Men of Amherst that “the school’s reputation was so great, it is reported, that
Amherst College would accept any student recommended by the Dunbar administration
without the student even having to take an entrance examination.”4
As a black public high school in a separate and unequal school system, Dunbar upended
the traditional notion of feeder schools as private, predominantly white institutions like
Exeter, Deerfield, and Andover. The legacy of Dunbar students gave (and continues to
give) Amherst an early twentieth-century precedent for black students’ potential for suc-
cess on its campus, an experiment in student diversity that predates the racial history of
peer institutions of higher education.
Yet the question remains: Why and how did so many black students from Dunbar
end up enrolling at Amherst during the first half of the twentieth century? What forces—
both at Amherst College and in Washington, DC—enabled and sustained this academic
pipeline?
Dunbar was the first black public high school in the nation, “the jewel in the crown
of the black school system” in Washington, DC, during the age of segregation.5 Dun-
bar’s teachers included several notable experts in their fields such as Carter G. Woodson.
Known as the “Father of Black History,” Woodson balanced teaching at DC public schools
with his doctoral studies. 6 In 1912, he became the second African American to earn a PhD
from Harvard University after W. E. B. Du Bois. Not surprisingly, with teachers of such
caliber, as one alumnus from the Dunbar class of 1957 recalled, Dunbar became “the place
to go if you thought you were college material and wanted to be prepared to go.”7
From 1870 until the Supreme Court finally ruled the segregation of public schools
unconstitutional in 1954, Washington, DC, operated a dual school system. The black divi-
sion of the school system operated with a notable degree of independence under the super-
vision of a black assistant superintendent. As George Derek Musgrove and Chris Myers
Asch explain in Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital,
black Washingtonians adapted to the challenges of segregation by striving “for black auton-
omy and equated educational excellence with their ability to run their schools relatively
free from white interference.” 8
Founded in 1870, the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth—Dunbar’s original
name—initially operated out of a Presbyterian church basement in Washington, DC. The
school became M Street High School in 1892, when students moved to a building on M
Street, which still stands today. M Street High School was renamed Paul Laurence Dun-
bar High School in 1916. The renaming anticipated yet another location change in 1917: this
time to a castle-like brick building that was demolished in the 1970s, to be succeeded by
more modern replacements in 1977 and 2013. 9
It is difficult to discuss the connection between Dunbar and Amherst without also
recognizing the radical origins and policies of Oberlin College in Ohio. In the 1830s, the
trustees of Oberlin agreed that students should be admitted to the college “irrespective
of color.” 10 Unlike Amherst, Oberlin, from its inception, also accepted women as well as
men. At a time when few American colleges educated either African Americans or women,
Oberlin was responsible for training several black women who would become teachers and
principals at Dunbar.
Mary J. Patterson, the first African American woman to receive a bachelor’s degree
in the United States, graduated from Oberlin College in 1862 and served as principal of
Dunbar twice between 1871 and 1884.11 She initiated a program of rigorous coursework,
based on her experience at Oberlin. 12 Patterson was followed by the well-known educa-
tors and activists Anna Julia Cooper and Mary Church Terrell. Both Cooper and Terrell
graduated from Oberlin and then headed to Washington, DC, to teach at Dunbar. These
women, like other college-educated African Americans in the Jim Crow era, had limited
opportunities to use their advanced credentials in higher education outside of historically
black universities.
Teaching positions at black public high schools attracted black college graduates who
dreamed of making a fair wage and applying their education to their careers. However, the
bar for black teachers was set high, partly as a consequence of segregation. 13 Terrell, who
taught at Dunbar from 1887 to 1891, described the struggles black women faced in seeking
employment under Jim Crow:
Unless I am willing to engage in a few menial occupations, in which the pay for my ser-
vices would be very poor, there is no way for me to earn an honest living, if I am not a
trained nurse or a dressmaker or can secure a position as a teacher in the public schools,
which is exceedingly difficult to do. It matters not what my intellectual attainments
may be . . . if I try to enter many of the numerous vocations in which my white sisters
are allowed to engage, the door is shut in my face.14
Adding to black women’s difficulties in finding work was the policy that married women
could not be teachers in the nation’s capital. Terrell left her position at Dunbar in 1891,
when she married the school’s principal at the time.15 She would go on to lead the National
Association of Colored Women in 1896, contributing to the suffrage movement and chal-
lenging racial segregation in Washington, DC, until she died in 1954.
Dunbar’s teachers in the early twentieth century were brilliant, devoted, and creative,
despite limited resources. Among the most extraordinary was Angelina Weld Grimké, who
taught English courses at Dunbar even as she pursued a parallel career as a poet and play-
wright. Her father, Archibald Grimké, was born into slavery in antebellum South Caro-
lina, and later rose to prominence as a leader of the NAACP. Inheriting Archibald’s dedica-
tion to racial justice, Angelina built a reputation within the DC black community for her
production of plays like Rachel in 1916, with an antilynching theme.16
Dunbar teachers not only encouraged students to apply to competitive colleges beyond
Washington, DC, but also prepared them for entrance examinations. Amplias Glenn grad-
uated from Oberlin in 1902 and served as both an educator and a counselor at Dunbar
from 1904 until his retirement in 1927.17 As a fellow teacher recalls, Glenn “conducted col-
lege guidance with no clerical aid for two decades,” while simultaneously teaching Latin
and heading the foreign language department. 18 Thanks to Glenn’s efforts, Dunbar stu-
dents received scholarships to northern colleges, including Bowdoin, Brown, Dartmouth,
Harvard, and Yale, as well as Amherst.19
Dunbar graduates heading to institutions like Amherst were certainly a minority of
college-bound students. It was much more likely that Dunbar students would attend local
and historically black institutions, like Howard University and Miner Teachers College.
Nonetheless, it is remarkable that even a small minority of early Dunbar graduates had the
confidence and guidance to leave DC for predominantly white colleges.
Anna Julia Cooper deserves much of the credit for fostering an academic climate that
prepared students equally for local universities as well as northern institutions far from
home. Cooper was born into slavery in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1858. Her father was
probably her master, who also owned her mother, Hannah Stanley Haywood.20 After
studying at Oberlin in the 1880s, Cooper moved to Washington to teach at Dunbar and
served as principal from 1901 to 1906. Given her ascent from slavery to higher education,
Cooper had full confidence that hard-working black students could succeed alongside their
white peers at colleges beyond the nation’s capital.
Cooper engaged actively in contemporary conversations on the future of education for
black Americans. Given the unfulfilled promises of emancipation and Reconstruction, sev-
eral prominent thinkers of the time debated what kind of education would best help black
communities in the United States. Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Insti-
tute in Alabama, believed blacks should strive for economic self-sufficiency and champi-
oned vocational education over classical learning. 21 He saw the best path forward for blacks
as one that created the least resistance.
On the other hand, W. E. B. Du Bois often challenged Washington’s educational phi-
losophy. Du Bois was an intellectual, trained as a sociologist, and the first African Ameri-
can to acquire a PhD from Harvard. He opposed Washington’s willingness to sacrifice
“the higher education of Negro youth . . . and concentrate all their energies on industrial
education and accumulation of wealth and the conciliation of the South.”22
Cooper corresponded with Du Bois regularly and attended the 1900 World Exhibition
in Paris with him and his wife. Later, she also contributed to The Crisis, the magazine Du
Bois edited for the NAACP. Finding a kindred spirit in Du Bois, Cooper viewed classical
education and lifelong learning as critical to black freedom and progress. Her vision also
melded Du Boisian ideas with mindfulness of women’s development. Cooper advocated
for the inclusion of women in intellectual and academic life, “making it a common everyday
affair for women to reason and think and express their thought.” 23
The friendship and solidarity between Du Bois and Cooper guided the trajectory of
Dunbar’s curricular development. Cooper insisted on a classical curriculum for Dunbar,
an oddity for any public school in the United States at the time, and that curriculum per-
sisted for decades after her tenure as principal. Without such a foundation, Dunbar stu-
dents would not have met the particular requirements of northern colleges. Accordingly,
the 1922 Dunbar student handbook included course offerings in both ancient and modern
languages. 24 Amherst still required applicants to be proficient in Greek and Latin through
the 1920s. 25
Cooper triumphed in fashioning Dunbar as an educational institution in the tradition
of Du Bois. However, her steadfast protection of the curriculum led to conflicts with the
school board and her eventual removal as principal in 1906. 26 Cooper defended her record,
claiming that, throughout her administration, “there have been boys to enter Harvard, Yale,
Amherst, Brown, and other colleges from Dunbar without conditions . . . [and] there had
never been any attempt to enter Harvard direct from the Dunbar High School previous to
my administration.” 27
Cooper went on to get a PhD in history in 1924, from the Sorbonne in Paris, making
her the fourth African American woman to earn a doctoral degree.28 Cooper then returned
to DC to teach at Dunbar until her retirement in 1930. More than thirty years after her
principalship, Dunbar’s 1944 philosophy echoed the ethos of the liberal arts colleges for
which Cooper sought to prepare her students: “We believe that in a democracy free sec-
ondary education should be provided for all, regardless of race . . . the pupils should be
prepared to meet effectively the changing situations in their present and future lives . . .
adapted to their capacities, the curriculum should be broad and modern enough to meet
the requirements of all pupils.”29 Thanks to Cooper’s leadership, Dunbar was uniquely
positioned among public schools in DC, black or white, to sustain a pipeline to New Eng-
land colleges for years to come.30
Under Cooper, the first Dunbar students to attend Amherst were Robert Mattingly and
James Le Count Chestnut, who completed their degrees in 1905 and 1907, respectively. In the
Amherst College yearbook, classmates remembered “Mat” as one of the “mighty few fellows
in Amherst who can enjoy Mathematics.”31 Mattingly finished his college coursework in only
three years and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, an honor that six other Dunbar-Amherst alumni
would later claim.32 After graduating, Mattingly and Chestnut returned to Washington, DC,
to pursue lifelong teaching careers at Dunbar and other DC public schools.33
William Tecumseh Sherman Jackson, an African American Amherst graduate (class
of 1892), succeeded Cooper as Dunbar’s principal in 1906. Upon stepping down from the
principalship in 1909, Jackson taught mathematics and coached sports through the 1920s.
Although Jackson grew up in Virginia and did not attend Dunbar himself, as an Amherst
College graduate, he was committed to maintaining and facilitating the pipeline from Dun-
bar to Amherst that had begun under Cooper’s leadership.
In the fall of 1888, Jackson enrolled at Amherst alongside two other black students:
William Henry Lewis, his classmate at the Virginia Normal School, and George Washing-
ton Forbes from Mississippi. 34 US Senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts covered
Jackson’s college tuition and was known for his progressive beliefs. 35 In spite of the inclusive
politics of his benefactor, Jackson encountered classmates at Amherst with degrading per-
ceptions of African Americans. While Jackson attended Amherst in the 1880s and 1890s,
the college’s athletic culture was infused with racism. The baseball team organized annual
blackface minstrel shows as part of their fundraising efforts.
In April 1889, during Jackson’s first year, an Amherst-orchestrated minstrel show took
place in the city hall of nearby Northampton. In the promotional flyer, the baseball team
even sold “round-trip [train] tickets including admission to minstrels” and proclaimed the
racist comedy show as “all for base ball.”36 A few years later, in May 1893, student journalists
reported in the Amherst Student that “their plantation melodies were received with hearty
applause, and were repeatedly encored.” 37
One can only imagine the discomfort and disappointment, if not fear and outrage, that
Jackson probably experienced as some white classmates mocked black people for profit. In
spite of these dynamics in Amherst’s athletic culture, Jackson excelled as a track athlete,
and after graduation, he became an advocate for Amherst, encouraging students at Dunbar
to attend his alma mater.
Probably the best-known Dunbar pupil that Jackson guided to Amherst was Charles
Hamilton Houston, the legendary lawyer who participated in practically all of the civil
rights cases leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. He mentored other law-
yers who advocated for racial justice in courts across the country.38 Through his faculty
position at Howard, Houston encouraged talented graduates of the university’s law school
to join the NAACP’s legal efforts, including his most famous protégé Supreme Court jus-
tice Thurgood Marshall.
Thanks to his academic aptitude and engaged parents, Houston completed middle
school at the age of twelve and graduated from Dunbar in 1911, when he was only fifteen.
Houston’s parents, William, a law clerk, and Mary, a hairdresser, relocated from Kentucky
to Washington, DC, in search of a better life. They worked hard to provide their only child
with an upbringing that they had never received. Although he received a scholarship to
the University of Pittsburgh, his parents wanted him to be educated at Amherst College,
despite the greater expense. 39
As the only black student in the Amherst College class of 1915, Houston faced
daunting social hurdles. Amherst’s unofficial policy of keeping black students housed
apart from whites meant isolation. The white-only fraternity life further separated him
physically and socially from his classmates. Out of solitude, Houston became more self-
reliant, converting a vacant room in his dormitory into a study and focusing his time on
excelling academically. 40
Like Mattingly, Houston completed his courses at Amherst quickly, graduating as vale-
dictorian at the age of nineteen. He then left western Massachusetts and headed across the
state to attend Harvard Law School. The staff writers of the Olio, the Amherst yearbook,
remembered “Charlie” as an academic star, deeming him “one of the hard workers of the
remembered “Charlie” as an academic star, deeming him “one of the hard workers of the class . . . [who] deserves anything that his scholarship may bring him.”41 In the following decade, Dunbar alumni comprised the majority of the black men who received their Amherst College diplomas. 42 As a mathematics instructor and a track coach, Jackson taught these students both inside and outside the classroom. A gifted runner dur- ing his own Amherst days, he prepared several young Dunbar men to continue with ath- letics at the collegiate level. Lacking the appropriate facilities of its own, Dunbar relied on Howard University, the premier historically black university in the district, a little over a mile away, to share its athletic fields. 43 Nonetheless, in the spring of 1921, Dunbar won third place in the annual Penn Relays in Philadelphia, defeating high school track teams from around the country.44 Frederick Allen Parker from the Amherst class of 1920 was an unforgettable runner. Olio writers noted that “when he gets going his spikes are about the only things that keep him back.” 45 The Olio also praised the athleticism of another Dunbar-Amherst track star, Robert Percy Barnes. 46 Barnes graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1921, and the college appointed him as a chemistry instructor after his graduation. This would technically situate Barnes as the first African American member of the Amherst faculty. Amherst would not hire a black faculty member for a tenure-track professorship until the arrival of Dr. James Q. Denton in 1964. Charles Drew (class of 1926), Montague Cobb (class of 1925), and William Henry Has- tie (class of 1925) all made the Amherst College varsity track team in 1923. These three scholar-athletes had probably been warned about the slights they would experience as they traveled away from Amherst to less-welcoming venues for competitions. Even if they built some camaraderie with white students during Amherst track practices, the realities of racial difference quickly reasserted themselves off campus. In 1925, Cobb, Drew, and Hastie ate alone at the Brown University dining hall while the rest of their team dined at the Narragansett Hotel. The hotel management heard there were “colored boys on the Amherst team and sent word that they would not serve them.”47 The ride back to Amherst from Providence was shrouded in silence. Even if sports failed to connect them with their white peers, the Dunbar-Amherst men created spaces for themselves for bonding and solidarity. Drew organized a ukulele group, probably the first of its kind in Amherst history. 48 The ensemble necessarily included the musically gifted Will Mercer Cook, one of Drew’s Dunbar classmates who also attended Amherst. Although Cook did not join Drew on the track team, he became an invaluable comrade when it came to the arts. When he was growing up, “Merc,” as he was known by his Amherst classmates, had traveled with his father, Will Marion Cook, a violinist and composer, as he toured across the United States and Europe.
W. Mercer Cook composed a song called “Sweetheart of All My Dreams” that the uku- lele group performed at their 1924 prom. It was so successful that Cook had to sue to get his royalties when it was plagiarized.49 Nonetheless, his talents were not always recognized by the college at large. Cook’s son Jacques recalls that his father told him that the head of the Amherst choir thought he had “the best voice on campus,” 50 yet the choir forbade blacks from joining.
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