Dunbar Junior College
Little Rock, Arkansas
1929-1955
E-Travel
The most complete newspaper coverage of Dunbar Junior College is found in the Arkansas State Press, a Black newspaper at the time. The Central Arkansas Library System has some Dunbar High School yearbooks, which occasionally featured junior college images. Sheila Witherington wrote a history of the school and building for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
History
Negro School for Industrial Arts opened in Little Rock in 1929. Unhappy that it was intended as a vocational school, African American leaders changed its focus, renaming it to honor Paul Lawrence Dunbar, a Black poet and fiction writer. A junior college opened in a wing of that new school with a dual goal of training elementary teachers and providing a two-year general education for students who wished to transfer. It was accredited by the North Central Council of Junior Colleges.
Classes opened for 74 students with 12 courses available. Enrollment grew to 142 by 1938, and to 236 in 1953. In addition, after World War II Dunbar opened a terminal program for veterans whose education had been interrupted, so that they could earn a high school diploma or certification for occupational competence in programs such as printing, auto mechanics, carpentry, or tailoring. Some 600 students took advantage of these programs.
1944 Dunbar JC Student Council. Image from the Bearcat. https://arstudies.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15728coll3/id/425118/rec/2
Dunbar JC students had a full range of co-curricular activities. The Literary Society gave birth to a debate team that toured in Texas, and the Thespian Cub that performed a yearly play. A glee club, a band, and an orchestra performed at off-campus events. Students had a National Honor Society, a student senate, a student newspaper, along with chapters of the Student Christian Association, Future Teachers Association, and the N.A.A.C.P.
At a closed meeting in March 1955, the Dunbar JC board of trustees decided to close the school. According to Encyclopedia of Arkansas, “no reason was ever given.”
Bricks and Mortar
Blacks in Little Rock attended Gibbs High School, described as overcrowded and deteriorating. Dunbar, the new high school for Blacks was built at 1100 Wright Avenue. Having just spent 1.5 million dollars on the state-of the art Central High School for white students, the school board could provide only $30,000 toward the cost of the new $400,000 structure. The Rosenwald Fund, provided by the president of Sears-Roebuck, contributed $67,000. The rest came from private funding. "The Finest High School for Negro Boys and Girls in Arkansas" was a three-story brick building in art deco style. Its three wings contained 34 classrooms, with a 1,000-seat auditorium, a cafeteria, a library, and labs for biology, chemistry and physics. It had seven industrial shops. The junior college occupied rooms in one wing. The 200,000 square foot building had a capacity for 1,600 students. It was dedicated in April of 1930.
When the high school and junior college were closed in 1955, Dunbar was relegated to junior high school status in the Little Rock system. The building was placed on the National Register in 1980. Today it serves as a magnet middle school for international studies.
Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School and Junior College. Image from the National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/places/paul-laurence-dunbar-high-school.htm
The Dunbar Junior College women played basketball as early as 1943. Image from the 1944 Bearcat. https://arstudies.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15728coll3/id/425118/rec/2
Sports
Team name: Blue Jackets
The new Dunbar school had no athletic facilities for practice or games and no newspaper coverage of sports until 1948. The 1945 Bearcat shows three junior college players on the high school football team, but it is not clear that Dunbar had a junior college men’s sports program until after World War II. The terminal program allowing returning veterans to complete diploma or certification programs at Dunbar provided a boost to junior college sports.
In 1948 Dunbar Junior College became a member of the Big Eight Conference of small colleges and junior colleges in Arkansas and Texas. DJC sponsored a basketball team in spring 1948 and a football team in fall 1949. The 1949 football schedule included Alcorn (B team), Arkansas Baptist, Shorter, and Arkansas AM&N in Arkansas and Butler JC, Jarvis Christian, Mary Allen, and Paul Quinn in Texas. The State Press reported victories over Alcorn, AM&N, and Mary Allen. That season DJC also played a formal game with DHS.
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