El Paso, El Paso County
This building is the original Douglass Grammar and High School, which served El Paso’s African American community from 1891 to 1920. It was named in honor of famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. El Paso established a segregated public school system in the 1880s and located its school for African American students in the heart of the Black community. Douglass opened as a grammar school in 1891. By 1896, the curriculum had expanded to include high school classes, foreign languages and music. African Americans found employment in the railroad, smelting, retail and service industries. As Black families prospered, they moved into middle and upper-middle class homes in the five points area and petitioned the city to provide a school closer to their new neighborhoods. In 1920, a new Douglass Grammar and High School was completed on Eucalyptus Street and the original Douglass School was sold. The new Douglass School served the city’s African American community from 1920 to 1956, when El Paso desegregated its school system. Today, Douglass is an elementary school. Prior to desegregation, teachers and students at Douglass faced many hardships, including lower salaries and inferior school equipment and supplies. Despite the discrimination, the principals and teachers were well educated and extraordinarily dedicated to their students. Many graduates went on to become successful surgeons, engineers, pharmacists, athletes, artists and educators. Douglass Grammar and High School is a symbol of the Jim Crow Era of institutional discrimination but it is also an example of the self-help philosophy that forged a unified African American community and provided the city’s Black children with a lifeline to higher education.