Current Dunbar High School Photo by NCinDC.

Mayor-elect Vince Gray recently asked to D.C. to stop denigrating our fair city. He spoke proudly of his alma mater, Dunbar High School — for nearly a century one of the best public high schools for African Americans in the country.

He went on to talk about how six alums and teachers had been featured on U.S. stamps. Indeed, Dunbar alums historian Carter G. Woodson, anthropologist W. Allison Davis, surgeon Charles R. Drew, educator Anna J. Cooper, lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston, and Mary Church Terrell, one of the first black women to earn a college degree, have all been featured on our nation’s stamps.

So let’s take a closer look at Dunbar High School, or the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, as it was known when it was established in 1870. It was the first school established for the education of black youth in the District. Dunbar High School sat at a variety of locations throughout the city, from the basement of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church to 128 M Street NW (now the Perry School building). It finally found a home at 1st Street between N and O Streets NW in the Truxton Circle neighborhood, where it remained until 1977.

The school, eventually named after Paul Dunbar, an African American poet, became a reason for families to move to D.C. in the early 20th century through the 50s. The school graduated children that went on to do great things, most went on to college. In 1916 there were nine black students attending Amherst College. Six of the students graduated from Dunbar.

Following desegregation the original school was demolished and moved to its current location at 1301 New Jersey Avenue NW, in a much less appealing building around the corner from its old location. After desegregation, the school’s prestige has dropped notably since its heyday in the early 20th century.

So let’s honor our soon-to-be mayor’s request, and stop putting down D.C., we’re a great town – there’s plenty to celebrate and also plenty to work to change.