Yolande Du Bois Fights Racism at Girls’ High School, brooklyn
One hundred years ago today … Girls’ High School senior Yolanda Du Bois was learning to be a civil rights activist, having successfully fought against her school’s racist policies. Photos of her from 1920 are scarce or nonexistent; here are two from 1925:
Anderson, J. R.. Yolande Du Bois, ca. 1925. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
Du Bois is most famous–let us not skirt the obvious—for being the daughter of a famous father, W.E.B. Du Bois, whom we discussed a bit in our February 1 and 4 posts about The Crisis (linked here and here) and our February 28 post (found here) about Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil, guest written by Mark Farrier.
1925. Scurlock Studios. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
But in April of 1920, she had fought for racial justice in a case that wound up going quite public. Her white schoolmates had voted to exclude the African American students from the senior prom. Du Bois and five other African American girls bought tickets anyway, and made their intention to attend clear. Under the direction of schools superintendent John L. Tildsley, the school relented. The result was, according to the April 24 Brooklyn Eagle, “the first dance in the boro at which the color line was not known”—though several newspaper write-ups say that there was little fraternizing between the races.
The Standard Union 24 April, 1920, p. 2. Newspapers.com
The Standard Union, treating Du Bois as spokesperson for the African American students, asked her whether there had been any unpleasantness, and reported her answer: “Of course not. We are having a lovely time.”
Historian Craig Steven Wilder addresses the incident and the press coverage, particularly the Eagle’s report “Negroes Frolic at Girls High Dance.” The Eagle makes clear that the real concern of the segregationists was not the female students, whom it calls “young colored girls, but rather their dates, whom the article calls “negroes.” (Wilder, 126).
The Girls’ High School was built and opened in 1886 at 475 Nostrand Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. It operates there still.
Girls’ High School, Brooklyn, 1909. Brooklyn Public Library.
Du Bois would graduate from Girls’ that year and enroll in Fisk College. She later earned a Master’s degree at Columbia University and became a career educator, largely based in Baltimore, Maryland. She was briefly married to Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen; their 1928 wedding was a big deal in the Harlem Renaissance community.