Alumni want NC to recognize Raleigh’s first public high school for blacks
RALEIGH–James Monroe remembers winning second place in a brick-laying contest at Washington Graded and High School, Raleigh’s first public high school for black students.
He also remembers drinking from separate water fountains while growing up in the city during the 1940s and ’50s.
“Anything that was public had a segregated side on it,” said Monroe, 86, who graduated from Washington in 1951. “All the nice things were forbidden to use or participate in (by African-Americans).”
(News & Observer, 3/16/2017)