Dunbar: A Center of Education

Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School educated Little Rock's African-American students from 1929 to 1955. Prior to opening, from 1907 to 1929, Little Rock's black students attended Gibbs High School. When Gibbs was partially destroyed by a fire, the Little Rock School Board chose to retain the building's undamaged portion as an elementary school and to build a new high school for black students nearby, at Wright Avenue and Ringo Street.

However, the school district's building fund has been depleted by the recent construction Little Rock High School (later known as Central High School), so the school board searched for alternate sources of financing construction. Through G. DeMatt Henderson, a Little Rock attorney, the school board obtained partial funding for the new school from the Julius Rosenwald Fund. The fun was established to help communities with the construction of public schools, the Rosenwald Fund had already assisted in the construction of many schools for black students across the United States. This was a common source of funding for schools for black students in the segregated South. By 1928, one third of black students in the south attended Rosenwald funded schools. Only 10-12% of these structures are estimated to still exist today.

The architectural firm Wittenburg and Delony designed the school by on a plan similar to that of Little Rock High School—though less ornate and on a smaller scale—and cost $400,000 to build. Schools financed through the Rosenwald Fund normally followed an industrial arts curriculum, so the new Little Rock facility was initially named the Negro School of Industrial Arts. The name was soon changed to Paul Laurence Dunbar High School to more accurately reflect the community’s goals for the school.

Due to Dunbar's quality reputation, students moved to Little Rock from all areas of the state to attend the school. Under John H. Lewis, the school's first principal, and his successors, William H. Martin (1943-45) and LeRoy M. Christophe (1945-55), Dunbar established a mutually supportive relationship with the local community and served as a focal point for Little Rock's African-American families. The school's faculty overcame shortages of funds and facilities to become the only black high school in Arkansas accredited by the North Central Association. The success of the school's methods may be seen in the high number of graduates who continued their education in college and became leaders in their fields. Additionally, many Dunbar graduates attended Dunbar Junior College, which operated housed within the high school building, before enrolling in four-year colleges elsewhere.

As part of the Little Rock School Board's plan for gradual desegregation, Dunbar students transferred to the new Horace Mann High School in 1965. Dunbar, meanwhile, was converted into a junior high school, and continued to operate in that capacity until 2009. Today, the school operates as magnet middle school within Little Rock School District.

In 1980, the school building was admitted to the National Register of Historic Places for both its architectural design and its place in the history of African American and Arkansas education. In 2013, the Paul Laurence Dunbar School Neighborhood Historic District was added to the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places. This area is roughly bounded by Wright Avenue on the north, South Chester Street on the east, South Ringo Street on the west and West 24th Street on the south.

After the school closed, the National Dunbar Alumni Association (NDAA) formed as a way for the students of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School to stay connected with one another. The first Dunbar alumni association was organized by 1949. The current alumni association dates to 1973, when the first national reunion was held; five years later, the NDAA was incorporated. With 11 local chapters nationwide, the association plays an active role in preserving Dunbar's legacy through scholarships, mentoring programs, and special projects and activities.

The National Dunbar History Project was conducted as a collaboration between the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Masters in Public History Program, UA Little Rock Archives and Special Collections, and the National Dunbar Alumni Association. The project collected artifacts and manuscript material related to the school and conducted oral history interviews with alumni. Oral histories are still being collected today through UA Little Rock Center for Arkansas History and Culture.

Many of the items were displayed in an exhibit entitled "The Finest High School for Negro Boys and Girls: A History of Dunbar High School in Little Rock" that was held in 1996 at the Arkansas Territorial Restoration (now the Historic Arkansas Museum). The exhibit was later modified as a traveling exhibit.