Frederick Douglass School

Frederick Douglass School. . In 1914, the San Antonio Independent School District erected this school building to serve as a new location for the Frederick Douglass School, which had been established in 1869 on Rincon Street (now Convent) to educate African-American children of all ages. First referred to as Rincon Street School, then Riverside in 1884, it was renamed Frederick Douglass School in 1902 in honor of the great African-American abolitionist and statesman., Designed by prominent local architect Leo Dielmann in the early modern progressive style, this new school was built exclusively for African-American senior high students. The first principal of Douglass High School at this new campus was Samuel Johnson Sutton, who had been appointed to that position at the old school in 1891, and who remained at the new Douglass School until 1933. It was Sutton who wrote the school purpose: "School is a place where we learn how to live, how to earn a living, how to get along agreeably with others.", In 1924, Douglass incorporated a junior school into its facilities as part of the creation of junior highs in the SAISD during the 1923-24 school year, making Douglass the first junior high school in the state of Texas for African- Americans., In 1933, Phyllis Wheatley High School was built for Alamo City African-Americans, and Douglass became a junior high school. Then, in 1969, as part of the SAISD desegregation plan, Douglass was converted into a nonsegregated elementary school for grades 3-5, which it continues to be today.