Old Congress Heights School: Rich (Personal) Past and Bright Future

Tonight, my mother and I stopped by the monthly meeting of the Congress Heights Civic Association for a very special reason.

The association met today with a representative from the DC African American Heritage Trail, who is now in the process of selected about 13 new landmarks across the District of Columbia to add to the trail and make it complete. It so happens to be that one of the landmarks that will be added to the trail sometime this summer is the Old Congress Heights School, a landmark in the neighborhood since it opened in 1897. For a long time, it served an all White community, but after the desegregation of the school in the mid 1950's, the large African American community began to grow.

After many years of disrepair, the school closed in 1970 and was left virtually abandoned on Martin Luther King Avenue, with its massive African American student body moving across the street to the New Congress Heights School, now known as Martin Luther King Elementary School (my Alma Mater).

This month, the building reopened after renovation and is now home to Imagine Southeast Public Charter School. For the first time in 41 years, the Old Congress Heights School is hosting Elementary School classes within its walls.

As the school and its new occupants look toward a bright future, the members of the Congress Heights Community Association looked back at its interesting past, shedding light on the rich history it provided for African Americans- even to my family. My mother brought with her to the meeting a class photo from the Old Congress Heights School from May 1969 (with my aunt smiling brightly on the front lawn of the school). Both my mother and my eldest aunt attended the old Congress Heights School just years before it closed its doors. A Washington Post article that was also brought to the meeting, dated September 1970, shows my youngest aunt marching across the street from the old school into the new school on the first day of the 1970-1971 School year.

History flowed at the meeting tonight with the room filled with 50-60 year residents of Congress Heights not only talking about the history of the iconic school building, but reminiscing about the rich past of the neighborhood itself. For the first time in four decades, you can view the iconic clock tower aglow while driving through Congress Heights at night, a sign that the landmark is coming back to life for yet another generation to enjoy.

The heritage trail plaque is set to be dedicated at the building in August, but no official date has been set yet.