Douglass Grammar and High School

The school's namesake was still alive when it opened. Frederick Douglass escaped slavery in Maryland on September 3, 1838, boarding a northbound train in Baltimore, and his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave became a bestseller in 1845. In 1847 he began publishing the North Star at Rochester, New York. President Hayes made him United States marshal for the District of Columbia in 1877, the first person of color named to the post, and in 1889 Benjamin Harrison sent him to Haiti as minister. He resigned in July 1891 and died on February 20, 1895.

What the plaque says

Douglass Grammar and High School 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. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A U-shaped adobe of the 1870s in central El Paso that joins Mexican building to an Anglo plan, closed for restoration through 2027 while its visitor center stays open.
• Chamizal National Memorial — 1.9 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 10 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 11 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.

More markers nearby

• Trinidad Concha — 0.2 mi
• Robert Ewing Thomason — 0.3 mi
• This Block was the Site of the Stage Station — 0.3 mi
• Site of the First Church Building in El Paso — 0.4 mi