The school is located in the Truxton Circle neighborhood of Northwest Washington, two blocks from the intersection of New Jersey and New York avenues.

When its location was changed from M Street, the school was renamed in 1916 for the noted African-American poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar, who died in 1906.

Dunbar was known for its excellent academics, enough so that some black parents moved to Washington specifically so their children could attend it.

"[10]Since its inception, the school has graduated many well-known figures of the 20th century, including Sterling Brown, H. Naylor Fitzhugh, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Charles R. Drew, William H. Hastie, Charles Hamilton Houston, Robert Heberton Terrell, Benjamin O. Davis Sr., Jean Toomer, Paul Capel, III, Robert C. Weaver, and James E. Bowman.

Its illustrious faculty included Anna Julia Cooper, Kelly Miller, Mary Church Terrell, A.

Among its principals were Anna J. Cooper, Richard Greener, Mary Jane Patterson, and Robert Heberton Terrell.

An unusual number of teachers and principals held Ph.D. degrees, including historian Carter G. Woodson, the second African American to earn a PhD from Harvard (after W. E. B.

Dunbar and several other District of Columbia public schools accepted black students from the county before that time.