Heart of the Arts from p13 Some of its more famous students, like Badu, Jones and others, still show up at times to sing and perform with the students and even bring along other famous and tal- ented names like Common, who stopped by the school with Badu in 2019. Booker T. Washington High School is now a century-old monument to the history and evolution of Dallas’ culture. “It truly is the shoulders of the giants that we stand on,” says Dr. Scott Rudes, Booker T.’s principal. “This school was founded by true pioneers who fought and prided them- selves on receiving an education. They were visionaries. They were creators, and then to have the school transformed into an arts magnet that also celebrates that innovation, creativity and commitment to pushing the envelope is a testament to the legacy of those that came before us.” The building that houses the Flora Street school in the heart of the Dallas Arts District opened on Oct. 30, 1922, as a high school for African Americans, the only one in Dallas’ segregated school district for its first 17 years of existence, according to its historical landmark designation report. The school added “Technical” to its title in 1952 following a $1 million renovation, making it the first technical African Ameri- can high school in the Southwest. Some no- table alumni from its “Bulldog years,” referring to the school’s first mascot, include former DISD teacher and administrator Dr. Thomas Tolbert, pioneering Dallas Morning News columnist and journalist Julia Scott Reed and sports legends such as world wel- terweight boxing champion Curtis Cokes and Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Ernie Banks, who’s honored with a statue on the school’s grounds. The school achieved many firsts in regional education: It was the first Dallas school to broadcast a football game on radio, the first school in the Southwest to teach an accredited course in African American life and history and the first to found a National Honor Society chapter, according to historical reports. “[Booker T.] was kind of different in a way because before then we were not al- lowed to do a whole lot of things,” says Ruthie Walker, who graduated from Booker T. Washington Technical High School in 1967 and served as her graduating class’ stu- dent council president. “It gave us a lot of opportunities to get jobs where we couldn’t get them.” Even before the school became an arts magnet, Booker T.’s students got a healthy dose of arts education and exposure, Walker says. “We got to go to the opera,” she says. “We got to go to the symphony. We got to do a whole lot of stuff we weren’t introduced to at K.B. Polk [Elementary].” Booker T. Washington closed in 1969 as part of a districtwide desegregation order. Dr. Paul Baker, a renowned theater teacher and one of the founders of the Dallas The- ater Center (DTC) in 1959, led an effort to make Booker T. into an arts magnet school upon its reopening in 1976. “Most of these schools exist because of a 14 14 desegregation order just like this one,” says Guinea Bennett Price, an ’89 alumnus of Booker T. who is also the co-founder and co- artistic director of the Soul Rep Theatre Company and the high school’s theater con- servatory director. Nolan Estes became DISD’s superinten- dent in 1968 and worked with Baker to es- tablish an arts curriculum and program expansions for students and teachers. Lou- ise Mosely Smith, a former head of the school’s theater division who worked with A student works on a multimedia art project. Kathy Tran Baker at DTC and his Children’s Theater program, wrote in an essay for the book Paul Baker and the Integration of Abilities that new strategies in “career education” were being implemented across the country to “engage the whole person or relate to life.” This led to the creation of magnet schools such as the Skyline High School in 1971, Kathy Tran Piano and music theory instructor Leonardo Zuno Fernández offers performance advice to his students. which taught academic subjects for half of the day and let students work on “practical projects in their chosen career field” for the rest of the day, Smith wrote. The following year, Baker wrote a book called Integration of Abilities outlining meth- ods and techniques he developed and imple- mented while teaching drama and theater at Trinity and Baylor University. Baker lays out new teaching techniques that use students’ sensory awareness and creative expression across all mediums to help students “discover their creative ability” and “help the theater catch up with the progress made in the other arts,” according to TSU archives. DISD created an exploratory group called The Alliance that advised the district to create magnet schools focused in career curriculums such as science, business, law and the arts. Baker became the director of the arts magnet school project and sought hundreds of thousands in funding to hire professional artists to advise and teach at the school, a decision he made after attending a National Conference of Magnet Schools in Houston where he and Smith met the founder of the renowned Houston High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Ruth Denney, Smith wrote. Meanwhile, the building for Booker T. Washington High School had been out of operation since the desegregation order and was being used as a meeting space and stor- age facility for the district’s PTA. Smith wrote they chose to visit the building as the first possible site because of its proximity to the DTC, and it immediately bowled them over with its possibilities. “It was love at first sight and smell,” Smith wrote. “As we walked through the halls with the high ceilings, the lovely wooden >> p16 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 MARCH 31–APRIL 6, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
