Petition for integrated D.C. public schools: 1870

An April 29, 1870 petition for integrated District of Columbia schools by the National Executive Committee of the Colored People is printed in “Index to the Miscellaneous Documents of the Senate of the United States for the3 Second Session of the Forty-First Congress 1869-’70.”

The petition was inserted into the Congressional Record by U.S. Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA), a long-time civil rights advocate and one of the so-called radical Republicans that fought for equality for Black Americans and punishment for former Confederate leaders in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War.

The petition was one of several offered by the National Executive Committee headed by George T. Downing, chair; and Frederick Barbadoes, secretary. The group also offered a petition on removing the word “white” from the Naturalization Bill.

The petition regarding District of Columbia schools was taken up by Sumner in an 1870 national civil rights bill that would have required integrated schools nationwide along with a requirement that all publicly funded entities be integrated.

The mixed race school requirement was the most contentious provision, but it survived in the bill until near the end of debate when the bill passed in 1875. The 1875 Civil Rights Bill, enacted shortly after Sumner’s death, was the last civil rights bill passed by Congress until 1957. Its equal protections provisions for publicly funded entities were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1883.

District of Columbia public schools can be traced back to 1804 for whites. Black District of Columbia residents initially established a privately funded school in 1851. The D.C. Emancipation Act of 1862 led to a law establishing free education for Black children on a segregated basis. The first Black public school opened in 1864.

Segregated schools were challenged in the Isabel Wall case where her child was ruled Black and barred from White schools in 1910 and by John P. Davis, the former executive secretary of the National Negro Congress, who challenged segregated schools in 1944.

Gardner Bishop, a Black barber, organized a long campaign in 1947 involving a student strike, picketing, meetings and lawsuits that ultimately resulted in the 1954 Bolling v. Sharpe U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed legally segregated D.C. public schools.

Post 1954, District schools continued to practice segregation by using a “tracking” system that shunted the vast majority of Black students into vocational training. D.C. activist Julius Hobson led demonstrations against tracking and ultimately won a lawsuit dismantling the practice in the early 1960s.

Schools in the District largely resegregated due to white flight from the city during the late 1950s and through the 1960s.

Downing was an abolitionist and activist for Black civil rights while building a successful career as a restaurateur in New York City; Newport, Rhode Island; and Washington, DC.

From the 1830s until the end of slavery, Downing was active in the Underground Railroad, using his restaurant as a rest station for refugees on the move. He built a summer season business in Newport, and made it his home.

For more than 10 years, he worked to integrate Rhode Island public schools. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Downing helped recruit Black soldiers.

After the war Downing moved to Washington, DC, where for a dozen years he ran the dining room for the U.S. House of Representatives.

He was a prominent member in the Colored Conventions Movement and worked to join the efforts of women's rights and black rights. He was also a founder of the Colored National Labor Union in 1869.

He became close to senator Charles Sumner and was with the legislator when he died. Late in his life he returned to Rhode Island, where he continued as a community leader and civil rights activist.

Barbadoes was primarily known for his civil rights work in California where he was one of the leaders of four conventions held in the state between 1855 and 1865. , He was also active in the national Black conventions and their off springs in the post-Civil War period, including the National Civil Rights Council, the National Executive Committee of the Colored People and the National Equal Rights League.

For a PDF of this 2-page document, see washingtonareaspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/1870-0...

For a blog post on the successful effort to end legal segregation of D.C. schools, see washingtonareaspark.com/2015/08/20/dcs-fighting-barber-th...

For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskivJu7g and flic.kr/p/2dfVyzK

The image was published by the U.S. Government Printing Office

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Taken on: April 29, 1870

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