In 1939, writing on behalf of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia now the District of Columbia State Board of Education, Superintendent Frank Ballou denied a request by contralto Marian Anderson to sing at the auditorium of the segregated white Central High School.

[6] When Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from that organization in protest, author Zora Neale Hurston criticized her for remaining silent about the fact that the Board had also excluded Anderson.

The District of Columbia has no home rule; it is controlled by congressional committees, and Congress at the time was overwhelmingly Democratic.

To my way of thinking, both places should have been denounced, or neither.” Although Anderson later performed at an open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial, the Board retained its policy of exclusion.

Originally located at Rhode Island Avenue and Ninth Street NW, it relocated to the Central High School building in 1950 and renamed.