
At the same time, many within the city’s African-American community objected to this type of curriculum, as they felt that a college-preparatory education strongly based in classical academics of the same caliber offered to white students should be made available for their children. The facility, the Delgado Central Trades School, was erected in 1921 and attendance was limited to white boys only (State Department of Education of Louisiana, 17, 1938-39). Within New Orleans, only one vocational/industrial trade school had been built to serve the city’s children in the years prior to World War II.
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These Negro boys need to learn how to hammer and saw, to do something with their hands’ (Salassi, 1995: 9-10). Still others felt that a vocational education was fitting for blacks because, as one school, superintendant stated, ‘….these Negro girls need to know how to cook so they can be good domestics. Many felt that such an education would prepare the city’s black students for employment in relatively high-paying emergent technical/trade careers, thus providing them with better opportunities in life. Department of the Census, 1940).ĭuring the 1930s, as industrial production expanded throughout the U.S., community leaders within New Orleans began to express a desire that any planned new black high school focus on vocational subjects in addition to providing a more traditional academic curriculum. By 1940, the number of black high school age children in the city had ballooned to 11,238 (U.S. 35’s physical plant and led to overcrowded conditions. Despite the fact that this number represented a mere 30% percent of the city’s black high school age population, it significantly taxed the McDonogh No. 35, the city’s only black public high school, during the 1930-31 school year. Of these children, 2580 were enrolled at McDonogh No. For example, census records indicate that 8,709 high school age (14-17 years) black children resided in Orleans Parish in 1930. 35’s campus had proved woefully inadequate to accommodate the city’s growing black community (Environmental/Historic Preservation (EHP) Program, 2011: 15-19). During much of the 1920s and early 1930s, the OPSB was further pressed into initiating discussions to consider the construction of a new high school for New Orleans’ black children as McDonogh No. 13 campus, then located at 655 South Rampart Street, from a white boys elementary school to a public high school for black students and renamed the facility McDonogh No.

However, in 1917, due to pressure from the black community, the school board relented and converted the McDonogh No. In 1881, the New Orleans School Board barred the city’s black students from attending public school beyond the sixth grade.
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Students from families with incomes at or below 130% of the federal poverty level are eligible for free meals.įor 2014, a family of two needs to make an annual income below $20,449 to be eligible for free meals or below $29,100 for reduced price meals.Ī family of four needs to make an annual income below $31,005 for free meals or $44,122 for reduced price meals.History of Booker T. Schools may not charge more than 40¢ for reduced-price lunches, nor more than 30¢ for reduced-price breakfasts.

Families with incomes between 130%Īnd 185% of the federal poverty level are eligible for reduced price meals. Students at a participating school may purchase a meal through the National School Lunch Program. This may indicate that the area has a higher level of poverty than the state average. The percentage of Booker T Washington High School students on free and reduced lunch assistance ( 57.9%) is higher than the state average of 48.1%. Booker T Washington High School is ranked 172nd out of 384 ranked schools in Alabama, for total students on lunch assistance.
