The Heights - Separate but Excellent

There was once a time long ago when making our way to school took us through the woods and over hill and dale, sometimes slipping and sliding in winter on icy roads and passing snow-covered forest and fields.  This ride took forever, journeying from one end of Prince George’s County Maryland to the other, to get to one of the only two Black high schools in the entire county, Fairmont Heights.

But, oh, was this long, long ride well worth it.  We left home in the pre-dawn and returned as the sun was shortly about to go down. In between, we spent time in what seemed like a world away, filled with caring and encouraging teachers who poured their very best into our young lives. And we absorbed everything they gave us, like water, into dry sponges.

‘The Heights,’ as we called it, was just like its name, always taking us higher than we ever thought we could go. The building itself felt like a small city of endless possibilities. I don't think I ever covered the total footage of this massive building in the years that I was there. These teachers, some of the best in this county or even the state, channeled our young minds in directions of unlimited future life choices.

Can you even imagine a high school with a dance instructor who worked under the tutelage of the founder of the first modern Black dance group in the United States (Katherine Dunham)? Or a first-class music instructor who exposed her students to music of every genre? There was a barber and beauty school within the school, and also carpentry and auto mechanics shops, all there to prepare students for vocational or college preparatory tracts. Our school spirit was always in overdrive because of our champion football and basketball teams that produced several professional players who truly made us exceptionally proud. James Gholson, our principal, who remained at the school for eighteen years, handpicked every teacher and administrator, maintaining the same expected high standards for almost two decades.

Photo courtesy of Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commision

It was a powerfully motivating force to know that we were enveloped in an environment designed to uplift and encourage – no matter what path we chose to take during our entire high school experience. During that era, this level of education for Black youth was certainly not the norm below the Mason - Dixon line. We were separate but excellent. Our separateness made us even better because we were surrounded by those who wanted all of us to succeed.

Seventy-one years later, The Heights, still standing in its glory, though no longer occupied, is now memorialized as a historic site.  As civil rights laws forced the integration of all schools, it became the death knell for The Heights and all it previously represented for the Black communities it served across the county. The mandates of integration sent students to schools based on newly drawn school district lines which drastically lowered the number of students who attended The Heights. The educational offerings were no longer as broad as they once were.

The neighborhood immediately surrounding The Heights, the 2nd oldest and largest Black community in the entire county, was one that governed itself in excellence from its incorporation in 1935 to this day.  The residents included many trailblazers, including the daughter of Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University. The school was just an extension of that excellence.

The upheaval that came with the transition from an all-Black high school, whose mission was not just to teach, but to change the trajectory of young Black lives, was felt for decades to come. It soon became an integrated and modernized facility, but the passion and drive of its students and teachers were gone. Now relocated to an old junior high school building, that positive energy and school pride no longer palpitated throughout the hallways of The Heights that we once knew and loved.

The notion that excellence could only come from the dictates of others considered superior to us was far from our truth at The Heights. So worthy of being memorialized in history, this place taught us how special we all could be and made us believe it. Students from the era of its proudest existence (1950 – 1970) still hold an extraordinary sense of pride in having attended this exceptional school that exemplifies the words of former principal, James Gholson, “We believe in the worth and dignity of every individual.”