Attempt to end Jim Crow in D.C. school: 1944
Former executive secretary of the National Negro Congress John P. Davis leads his son Michael, age 5, away from the Noyes school at 10th and Evarts Street NE February 7, 1944 after the school principal refused to admit his son to the all-white school.
Davis is shielding his son’s face from photographers with a birth certificate as white children look on.
Davis entered the school and was led into principal Grace Lind’s office where she told Davis, “I have to say I cannot enter him.”
Davis asked, “Is there any reason?” and Lind replied, “Because this is a school for white children only.”
Davis intended to challenge the so-called “separate but equal” District public school system by using the refusal to “establish legal procedure.”
There was no black school within 17 blocks walking distance and six-and-one-half miles by public transportation.
The suit was initially dismissed in May with the judge ruling that the facts presented did not show discrimination but merely an inconvenience to the boy.
However, the judge permitted Davis to amend his suit.
Davis amended the suit to show that within the Brookland area there resided approximately 500 black families which had over 100 children of elementary school age.
By contrast, Davis charged that there was no comparable white residential area with more than 30 children that did not have suitable and convenient school facilities within a reasonable distance.
Davis lived at 3105 14th Street NE. The white Noyes school was a half mile away while the black Crummel School was a-mile-and-a-half.
The school board responded to the suit by saying that Davis knew there was no black school in the neighborhood when he moved there and that a 1910 Court of Appeals ruling had upheld Washington D.C.’s segregated school system.
The school board, however, did request funds to build a new Lucy Slowe elementary school in the area for black children.
Construction of the Slowe school was repeatedly delayed by the District’s three commissioners and finally opened several years later. During school construction it was discovered that the soil surrounding the building was unsuitable for a playground, continuing to relegate black children to substandard facilities.
Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-Miss.), an open member of the Ku Klux Klan, responded to the controversy saying that the District would never have any “negra” children entering its “white” schools.
Davis’ suit was denied in the lower court and again upon appeal.
However, in the course of the suit, the assistant superintendent of the black schools, Garnet C. Wilkinson, revealed that the black schools were overcrowded and a number of schools were operating on “double shifts” where children received half the educational hours of white children.
This issue sparked another revolt when Gardner Bishop attempted to enroll his daughter in an all-white school in 1947 to avoid double shifts and having to walk between three different schools.
Bishop would go on to organize a 2-month student strike, picket the board of education, hold demonstrations and meetings and file suits.
The failure of Davis’ suit helped convince former Howard University law school dean and former NAACP general counsel Charles Hamilton Houston that discrimination could not be effectively challenged under the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine of the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.
He and Bishop agreed upon the approach of taking Jim Crow head-on and, although Houston died before the Bishop’s Consolidated Parents suit made its way through the courts, the legal strategy was successful.
In Bolling v. Sharpe the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that segregated public schools in the District of Columbia were illegal.
Brief biography of John P. Davis:
Davis was working as a journalist and as a clerk for U.S. Rep Vito Marcantonio (ALP-N.Y.) at the time of attempting to enroll his son in the white school.
Davis moved to New York City with his wife and children during the course of the suit and prior to the Slowe school opening.
He would go on to found Our World magazine—a black publication similar to Life Magazine and later compile The American Negro Reference Book covered virtually every aspect of African-American life, present and past.
Davis grew up in Washington, D.C. attending its segregated schools and graduated from the elite Dunbar High School in 1922. He graduated from Bates College in Maine in 1926. He moved to New York City where he became involved in the Harlem Renaissance.
Enrolling in Harvard University, he earned a masters degree in journalism and a bachelor of laws degree.
In 1933 he and Robert C. Weaver established an office in Washington, D.C. to pressure the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt to insure that black people received benefits from the New Deal. They successfully fought against a wage differential and for equal access to New Deal housing programs.
The two formed the Negro Industrial League to continue the pressure and then establish the Joint Committee on National Recovery, a group of 26 organizations to continue lobbying for inclusion of African Americans in New Deal programs.
In his most well-known role, he founded the National Negro Congress in 1936—a broad based organization that included Ralph Bunche, A Phillip Randolph, the Urban League’s Lester Granger, chief counsel of the NAACP Charles Hamilton Houston and James Ford of the Communist Party.
In Washington, D.C., Davis was also active in the local Negro Congress that helped lead the fight against police brutality and assisted in organizing unions among the cleaners and cafeteria workers and the women’s auxiliary of the Red Caps union. They were one of the main sponsors of the effort to desegregate the operator ranks of the Capital Transit Company, the federal government and defense related industry.
The organization faltered when A. Phillip Randolph pulled out in 1940 and formed his own organization, The March on Washington Movement. Davis left the National Negro Congress in 1942.
For more information and related images on D.C. school desegregation, see flic.kr/s/aHskivJu7g
For a blog post on the fight to eliminate segregation in D.C. public schools, see washingtonareaspark.com/2015/08/20/dcs-fighting-barber-th...
Photo by Gus Chinn. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Attempt to end Jim Crow in D.C. school: 1944
Former executive secretary of the National Negro Congress John P. Davis leads his son Michael, age 5, away from the Noyes school at 10th and Evarts Street NE February 7, 1944 after the school principal refused to admit his son to the all-white school.
Davis is shielding his son’s face from photographers with a birth certificate as white children look on.
Davis entered the school and was led into principal Grace Lind’s office where she told Davis, “I have to say I cannot enter him.”
Davis asked, “Is there any reason?” and Lind replied, “Because this is a school for white children only.”
Davis intended to challenge the so-called “separate but equal” District public school system by using the refusal to “establish legal procedure.”
There was no black school within 17 blocks walking distance and six-and-one-half miles by public transportation.
The suit was initially dismissed in May with the judge ruling that the facts presented did not show discrimination but merely an inconvenience to the boy.
However, the judge permitted Davis to amend his suit.
Davis amended the suit to show that within the Brookland area there resided approximately 500 black families which had over 100 children of elementary school age.
By contrast, Davis charged that there was no comparable white residential area with more than 30 children that did not have suitable and convenient school facilities within a reasonable distance.
Davis lived at 3105 14th Street NE. The white Noyes school was a half mile away while the black Crummel School was a-mile-and-a-half.
The school board responded to the suit by saying that Davis knew there was no black school in the neighborhood when he moved there and that a 1910 Court of Appeals ruling had upheld Washington D.C.’s segregated school system.
The school board, however, did request funds to build a new Lucy Slowe elementary school in the area for black children.
Construction of the Slowe school was repeatedly delayed by the District’s three commissioners and finally opened several years later. During school construction it was discovered that the soil surrounding the building was unsuitable for a playground, continuing to relegate black children to substandard facilities.
Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-Miss.), an open member of the Ku Klux Klan, responded to the controversy saying that the District would never have any “negra” children entering its “white” schools.
Davis’ suit was denied in the lower court and again upon appeal.
However, in the course of the suit, the assistant superintendent of the black schools, Garnet C. Wilkinson, revealed that the black schools were overcrowded and a number of schools were operating on “double shifts” where children received half the educational hours of white children.
This issue sparked another revolt when Gardner Bishop attempted to enroll his daughter in an all-white school in 1947 to avoid double shifts and having to walk between three different schools.
Bishop would go on to organize a 2-month student strike, picket the board of education, hold demonstrations and meetings and file suits.
The failure of Davis’ suit helped convince former Howard University law school dean and former NAACP general counsel Charles Hamilton Houston that discrimination could not be effectively challenged under the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine of the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.
He and Bishop agreed upon the approach of taking Jim Crow head-on and, although Houston died before the Bishop’s Consolidated Parents suit made its way through the courts, the legal strategy was successful.
In Bolling v. Sharpe the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that segregated public schools in the District of Columbia were illegal.
Brief biography of John P. Davis:
Davis was working as a journalist and as a clerk for U.S. Rep Vito Marcantonio (ALP-N.Y.) at the time of attempting to enroll his son in the white school.
Davis moved to New York City with his wife and children during the course of the suit and prior to the Slowe school opening.
He would go on to found Our World magazine—a black publication similar to Life Magazine and later compile The American Negro Reference Book covered virtually every aspect of African-American life, present and past.
Davis grew up in Washington, D.C. attending its segregated schools and graduated from the elite Dunbar High School in 1922. He graduated from Bates College in Maine in 1926. He moved to New York City where he became involved in the Harlem Renaissance.
Enrolling in Harvard University, he earned a masters degree in journalism and a bachelor of laws degree.
In 1933 he and Robert C. Weaver established an office in Washington, D.C. to pressure the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt to insure that black people received benefits from the New Deal. They successfully fought against a wage differential and for equal access to New Deal housing programs.
The two formed the Negro Industrial League to continue the pressure and then establish the Joint Committee on National Recovery, a group of 26 organizations to continue lobbying for inclusion of African Americans in New Deal programs.
In his most well-known role, he founded the National Negro Congress in 1936—a broad based organization that included Ralph Bunche, A Phillip Randolph, the Urban League’s Lester Granger, chief counsel of the NAACP Charles Hamilton Houston and James Ford of the Communist Party.
In Washington, D.C., Davis was also active in the local Negro Congress that helped lead the fight against police brutality and assisted in organizing unions among the cleaners and cafeteria workers and the women’s auxiliary of the Red Caps union. They were one of the main sponsors of the effort to desegregate the operator ranks of the Capital Transit Company, the federal government and defense related industry.
The organization faltered when A. Phillip Randolph pulled out in 1940 and formed his own organization, The March on Washington Movement. Davis left the National Negro Congress in 1942.
For more information and related images on D.C. school desegregation, see flic.kr/s/aHskivJu7g
For a blog post on the fight to eliminate segregation in D.C. public schools, see washingtonareaspark.com/2015/08/20/dcs-fighting-barber-th...
Photo by Gus Chinn. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.