Tracing its history back to 1883, Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School began as the “Colored High and Training School”, when city schools were segregated. There were several other locations before finding its current location on Gwynns Falls Parkway in 1954, near the Mondawmin estate that would soon become the current mall of the same name. (A prior location at 1645 N Calhoun Street, used from 1924 to 1954, exists as an apartment building that still bears the Frederick Douglass name.)
The decision to officially honor 19th century African-American leader and Baltimore resident Frederick Douglass with his name did not happen until 1925, some 30 years after Douglass delivered a commencement address at the school… Speaking of Douglass graduates, the list includes jazz singer and bandleader Cab Calloway, pioneering civil rights activist Lillie May Carroll Jackson, U.S. Congressman Parren J. Mitchell and other members of the Mitchell family, jazz singer Ethen Ennis, members of the musical group Dru Hill, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Of course, ironically, it was Marshall’s argument in the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education that led to the desegregation of schools, changing the legality of segregated schools like Frederick Douglass High School in the 1950s. However, the school remains as a West Baltimore destination for high schoolers, as well as a living legacy to the city’s African-American heritage.
In the media, the school was featured in a 2008 documentary for HBO, and the school was near an epicenter of the unrest that occurred in 2015, following the death of Freddie Grey while in police custody.
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| A visit to the Alumni Association office of Frederick Douglass High School reveals a grand collection of colorful yearbooks and other information from Baltimore’s historic high school for African-Americans. For 30 years it was the only high school for blacks in Baltimore City. |
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| The halls of the school are filled with memorable paintings and other history. |
