Greetings!
Episode 5
High Society in
20th Century Washington, D.C, 1908
Armstrong Technical High School or McKinley Technical High School
There were only two routes that you could follow to take your place in Washington D.C. high society, for the low-class black folk.
You could attend Armstrong Technical High School, a vocational high school for black folk located in northwest Washington, D.C or for low-classed folk, McKinley Technical High School in northeast Washington, D.C.
By attending these schools, you would be stamped as “the other type of black or folk person” and possibly be doomed to a lower-class existence for the rest of your life.
Both schools were probably set up for lower class folk and black folk, and although you got a good vocational education that would lead to a job, it could be a setback for moving up in black (or folk) elite society.
In most instances, you didn’t get a “good” upper class job if you told people that you graduated from Armstrong Technical High School. Armstrong was a good school, and it prepared you to get a good job as a typist in the government, as a construction worker or for other low-classed jobs,
My education and experience at Dunbar High School and Howard University, with upper class black folk, prepared me for getting a good professional upper-class job.
It gave me the experience of going to school with upper class high society black students, prepared me for an upper-class education and to look for and to find a future husband who was high society material.
Climbing Washington, D.C.’s High Society Ladder
There were many low-class blacks who wanted to climb Washington’s society ladder, but they did not follow the route that I took because I felt in some way that I was “special”.
