Three Delaware sites officially added to Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park

WILMINGTON – The Howard High School of Technology, the Claymont Community Center, and the Hockessin Colored School #107 have been officially added to the Brown v Board of Education National Historical Park to provide a more complete telling of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision outlawing segregation in public schools.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Day announcement by outgoing U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland was not surprising. The three sites were among five designated for inclusion through the signing of the Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park Expansion and Redesignation Act into law. U.S. Senator Chris Coons and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) introduced the bill that was signed into law in 2022 by President Joe Biden.

“I was raised just a few hundred yards away from Hockessin Colored School, but I did not learn of its important role until I was in law school. It’s imperative we embrace our history and teach it well, so every student is aware of the past and carries its lessons with them while crafting a brighter future,” Coons said Monday. “Today’s National Park Service designation will make our students a little more aware of their past and help our nation come to know Delaware’s important role in America’s history of correcting injustice and segregation.”

RELATED: Hockessin Colored School No. 107 opens as historic site

The Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park now consists of the three Delaware sites; Monroe Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas; and Summerton High School and Scott’s Branch High School in South Carolina.

The 2022 law expanded Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park to authorize adding additional schools as affiliate sites to the park. Three Delaware sites that played a pivotal role in the 1954 case striking down the doctrine of “separate but equal” were included:

Howard High School in Wilmington, already a National Historic Landmark, was the first high school for African Americans in the state of Delaware and the school to which the plaintiffs in Belton v. Gebhart were forced to travel. Today, the school is known as Howard High School of Technology and is administered by the New Castle County Vocational-Technical School District.

Claymont Community Center, formerly Claymont High School, denied admission to the plaintiffs in the Belton v. Gebhart case. Today, the former school is a community center.

Hockessin School #107 was an all-Black school that one of the plaintiffs in Belton v. Gebhart was required to attend without being provided the same public transportation offered to white students attending other schools. It is now used as a community facility.

RELATED: Delaware’s history in Brown v. Board honored with memorial

The announcement comes just a few weeks after President Biden included the late Louis Lorenzo Redding and Collins J. Seitz among 20 recipients of the Presidential Citizens Medal. Redding and Seitz were key players in Delaware cases that laid the framework for the Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

While the effort was signed into law by President Biden in 2022, today’s signing of a Secretarial Decision by Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland means the three Delaware sites can officially celebrate their affiliation with the NPS, promote that affiliation, and are formally preserved through the protections offered therein. All three sites continued to offer educational services throughout the two-year implementation process.

“Black history is an essential part of our collective story,” said Senator Blunt Rochester, who joined Coons and Rep. Sarah McBride in celebrating the announcement. “Preserving Black history—across our nation, but especially in Delaware – has never been more important. I am proud that Delaware’s role in this landmark civil rights decision is getting the recognition it deserves, and I look forward to these three sites continuing to educate Delawareans for generations to come.”

“The Friends of Hockessin Colored School #107C are ecstatic to be formally recognized as a National Park Service Historical Site under Brown v. Board of Education,” said David Wilk, of the Friends of Hockessin Colored School #107C.  “To have 107C be honored and preserved ‘means the world to us former students’ (James “Sonny” Knott) and is ‘one of the highlights of our life to Walk through the Doors Again.’”