[2] Alumni include Martin Luther King Jr., Maynard Jackson who became Atlanta's first Black mayor, Walt Frazier who played basketball at the school, Lonnie King, Vernon Jordan, Clarence Cooper (judge), and gold medal-winning Olympian Mildred McDaniel Singleton.

It was named for prominent businessman and philanthropist David Tobias Howard.

[2] The school was named for David T. Howard, a former slave who owned Atlanta's largest black-owned undertaking business and founded its first African American owned bank.

He donated thousands of dollars to poor children to be educated, to Tuskegee University, and donated the 7.5-acre campus for the elementary school which was named after him.

[2] In 2021, it reopened as David T. Howard Middle School.