 Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the forum webinar series. I'm Leslie Canan, senior field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In case you don't know, Preservation Leadership Forum is the professional membership program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This webinar series is made possible by members of Preservation Leadership Forum and we sincerely thank those of you who are with us today. Through our African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, we bring you today's webinar called Brown v. Board, A Tale of Three Delaware Schools. And we will be exploring the role of three sites in Delaware, the former Claymont High School, the former Hocassan Colored School, number 107C, and the former Howard High School in the Segregating America School System. While these sites are separated by geography, they are brought together by history, court cases and a very basic and fundamental issue. African American parents seeking to have equal education, transportation or facilities for their children. Before we begin, here are a few technical logistics. We will take questions from the audience during the webinar. Please send questions via the Q&A function directly to panelists. You are also welcome to submit at any point during the webinar, but we will be waiting until the Q&A section to answer questions. You are also encouraged to communicate to all participants through the chat function. Dr. Lynette Edwards is a historian and an expert on this history. She will be available in the chat to answer some of your questions. The closed captioning function is enabled for this webinar. You can enable it and disable it either through the controls at the bottom of your Zoom screen or through your audio settings, depending on what version of Zoom you're using. Following the program, we will send out a recording of today's webinar directly to the email you use to register. And finally, all form webinars are archived in our form webinars library. And now let's get started. Thanks Leslie. It's been a joy and a pleasure to get to know the Delaware communities and many of the speakers you'll hear from today. My name is Pam Bowman. I'm with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And I've been working as part of the team to get some legislation established to deal with the history of the Landmark Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court case. The Delaware communities, along with the communities of Virginia, Washington DC, South Carolina and Kansas, we've all been collectively working towards preserving and protecting a number of sites associated with that court case. And before we hear from our speakers, we wanted to share with you some information about the multi-state effort to support federal legislation that would really provide an opportunity for the public to learn of the stories of all the court cases in those communities and preserving historic locations. Bipartisan and bicameral legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate led by Representative Clyburn in the House and Senator Coons from Delaware in the Senate, and both have been instrumental leaders on preserving this history. Next slide please. We are honored and privileged to be able to work with the Office of United States Senator Chris Coons on this legislative proposal. Senator Coons has served as United States Senator for Delaware since his election in 2010, and he sits on a number of committees including appropriations, judiciary, foreign relations, small business and entrepreneurship, and the ethics committee. And the senator has been a strong supporter of historic preservation and a leader of the Brown versus Board legislative effort. Unfortunately, the senator was not able to join us today, but he recorded for all of you a message that we'll play now. I'm Senator Chris Coons from Delaware, and I'm glad to be joining the National Trust's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund Forum webinar on the Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court case today. The Brown versus Board of Education case has rightfully found its place in American history as one of the most significant Supreme Court decisions in our nation's history and a turning point in our country's long arc towards achieving greater racial justice. Yet many people never learned the full history of the several lawsuits across several different states that were ultimately consolidated into what became that one famous Brown versus Board case. And even fewer know that three schools in Delaware played a critical role in desegregating America's school system. Those three schools were Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware, so-called Hoekesson Colored School from the tiny town of Hoekesson, Delaware, and Claimont High School, Claimont, which became the first high school to be integrated in any of the 17 states with legal segregation. These three sites are related to two legal cases in Delaware that were later consolidated into Brown versus Board. And those two cases are Belton versus Gephart, involving the desegregation of Delaware's high schools, and Bula versus Gephart. Bula started with a mother, Sarah Bula, just fighting to get her daughter Shirley a chance to ride the bus that literally went past their house so that her daughter could ride the bus to the so-called Colored School in Hoekesson. Both of these cases were led by the first African-American admitted to the Delaware bar, legendary attorney Louis L. Redding, who led the fight to desegregate Delaware's public schools. These cases were heard in Delaware's unique Court of Chancery, something that goes back to the colonial era, a separate court that hears arguments in equity, where young chancellor CJ Seitz had the courage to rule that the doctrine of separate but equal, although still the law, was a lie in practice in Delaware. And he ordered the Delaware State Board of Education to open all schools in Delaware to African-Americans in order to address the gross inequality in their conditions. The Delaware decision was the only decision of the five consolidated court cases that the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Brown versus Board of Education. Chancellor Seitz's decision was unanimously affirmed by the Delaware Supreme Court, and that's the case that was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. I grew up down the road from one of these schools in Little Hoekesson, Delaware. My mom was a public school teacher, yet I never learned about the history in a classroom close to home. Rather, it wasn't until many years later in law school that I learned the pivotal and painful facts of these cases. That's why I'm so dedicated to working to add these sites to the national registry, and why I'm so grateful for the tireless work of the National Trust to elevate these three sites in Delaware and their stories as part of the larger historical narrative of the advancement of civil rights in our nation. I'm proud to partner with the trust and colleagues here in the Congress, Senators and Representatives Blunt Rochester from Delaware and Clyburn from South Carolina, on the Bipartisan Brown versus Board of Education National Historic Site Expansion Act. Here in the Senate, that's Senate Bill 270, and it would expand the Brown versus Board National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas to include additional sites from South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Delaware. Our legislation would provide the opportunity for these sites to be fully understood, to tell their own under-recognized uplifting stories about the historic figures who helped shape American history and society. Preserving these sites also ensures that future generations are able to learn about the power of perseverance, determination, and unity in overcoming the impact, the brutal and long impact that the separate but equal doctrine had on our nation and the education of our nation's children. History, if not remembered, will be repeated. Today's webinar is yet another great opportunity, a good program put on by the trust in service of ensuring that this powerful Delaware history not be forgotten. Thank you for playing that video. I hope you'll all join me in sharing your thanks to Senator Coons and their staff for all the incredible work that's gone on into this legislative proposal. And on the next slide. On your screen, you'll see a little bit of information about the legislation that Senator Coons was speaking about. This is a legislation that's been introduced in both the House and the Senate. You'll see the bill numbers here and the leaders of each bill and original co-sponsors that have joined in this effort to support getting this legislation passed, hopefully by the end of this Congress. This bipartisan and bicameral bill has tremendous support since its introduction. It has 100% participation by the House and Senate offices representing the expansion sites. And along with the Kansas Senators that represent the Topeka Kansas site in the National Park Service. But we still need your help to get this bill a vote in the House or Senate and get it to the President's desk. We've had two hearings in the House and Senate and the Senate committee passed the bill unanimously. But in order to move the bill forward, we could use your help by joining us in visiting the website that's listed on your screen. You can go to savingplaces.org and we have a free tool where you can contact your members of Congress and ask them to support the legislation in any way possible as the legislation moves forward. I will now turn it back over to Leslie, who can introduce our first speaker. Thank you, Pam. So the next, our next set of speakers are going to be from Howard High School of Technology. And it's going to be Kyle Hill and Beatrice Patton-Dixon. So first, Kyle Hill's success in both urban and suburban schools is proof that his positive mindset and hard-charging work ethic is the formula that can be led to the transformation to both much of education's needs today. He earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education from a university of Maine, a master's in adult learning from Virginia Tech, and a certificate in educational leadership and administration from George Mason University. He is currently pursuing his doctorate in educational leadership from Wilmington University. We also have Beatrice Patton-Dixon. She's a native from Delaware, whose family has lived in the state for more than 250 years. She attended historic Howard High School, Howard University, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Beatrice worked in the law offices of the Honorable Leonard L. Williams and with Louis L. Redding Esquire, both of whom were also Howard High School graduates. In the 1970s, when the federal courts in Wilmington ordered the implementation of their desegregation orders in the Brown case, Beatrice helped organize and served as an officer in the coalition to save our children, the community-based organization that federal courts recognized and appointed as the legal representatives of the African American children subjected to the 1970s implementation of the educational desegregation and the New Castle County Delaware. So now we will hear from Howard High School. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Beatrice Patton-Dixon of the Howard High School Alumni Association. And I will be presenting the first portion of Howard's segment on Brown versus the Board of Education. I along with Principal Kyle Hill will do this. It is extraordinarily difficult, obviously, to talk about 155 years of history in 10 minutes, so I'm going to go through this quickly. And if there are any questions, I'd be glad to answer them at the end of the presentation. Slide one contains pictures of the current physical plant of 1927 historic Howard High School and the 1993 renamed Howard High School of Technology. The front of the building to the left is a 1927 historic Howard High School with its annex in the rear and the buildings to the right were added in 1975 during the 70s Brown implementation when the school was then renamed Howard Career Center. After a great outcry from the black community about the name change, it changed again in 1993 and renamed to the Howard High School of Technology. Howard High School is 155 years old and it is the oldest continuously operated and publicly funded high school in Delaware. It was originally built for blacks by the Freedman's Bureau with federal funds and relocated and rebuilt by philanthropists Pierre Dupont in 1927. Slide two, please. Slide two shows a view of both buildings again with the signage indicating the National Park Services April 5th, 2005 designation of Howard High School because of its role in Brown on the National Register of Historical Places. Slide three, please. The story of how Howard High School became a part of the Brown decision in Delaware's funding of the public education is about a tale of two schools and two races of people. One black Howard High School and one white Claymont High School. It is about who paid for what for the public education of Delaware's black and white students. The federal government paid for the initial building of Howard High School after the Civil War and philanthropists Pierre Dupont used his personal funds to pay for relocating the building as a high school for black students in 1927. Black students paid for their own school transportation costs to go past their neighborhood schools and Claymont High School to attend Howard High School which for many years was the only high school Delaware's black students could attend. Black parents were required to pay taxes to support the publicly financed and more well resourced Claymont High School and other white schools in Delaware but their children were not permitted to attend. It is a tale about how Delaware exhibited a great disparity in the apportionment of public funds to educate its black students. It is also about the additional burdensome personal funds Delaware's black parents expended to educate their children. For decades prior to Brown, black students throughout the state who wanted a high school education were required to pay for their own personal housing, bus and transportation costs to ride past Claymont High School and Delaware's other white high schools in or near their neighborhoods to attend Howard High School. Slide four, when Dupont built Howard High School for black students in 1927, the school was state of the art in the nation and he was hoping that he'd be able to encourage the Delaware General Assembly to invest more money in schools for all of Delaware's children. Instead they built more publicly funded schools for Delaware's white students. Slide five, from the time Howard was built in 1867 until the schools were integrated, Howard High School attracted some of the best national black teaching talent. Prior to integration, most of Howard's black teachers had been educated at the nation's most prestigious HBCUs and Ivy League schools. Yet, those same teachers were not permitted to teach at white schools in Delaware because of segregation. Their cultural competence and understanding of Howard students allowed Howard students to secure excellent educations and educational experiences. Slide six, Delaware had two mass implementations of the Brown decision, one in 1954 and the other in 1978. My personal experience is with the 1950s implementation of Brown and in going from the smaller nurturing all black Douglas Elementary School in kindergarten to the larger previous and then still mostly white lower elementary school in first grade. It was a very hostile environment because Laura was a much larger school and I never had a black teacher or another black student in my classrooms throughout my elementary school education there. Integration of Howard in the 70s meant that over time while Howard's student body integrated, most of the teaching and administrative staff gradually became a lot less black and a lot more white and this pattern continues today. Slide seven, there was a much greater significance and impact made by the Brown decision and the Howard High School and the other plaintiff schools role in it. The case was decided on the very narrow issue of the integration of the nation's schools. Brown's broader significance was in overturning the 1896 Plessy versus Ferguson decision. We're in the court had determined that as long as separate pump public accommodations were made for blacks, it was legally permissible to have separate facilities for the races. The Brown decision changed the courts earlier separate but equal precedent in education and led the way later for integration of restaurants, hotels and other public accommodations. Mr. Redding was very active in legally pursuing and assuring the success of the implementation of the integration of Delaware's schools, restaurants, hotels and other public accommodations. Slide eight, there are four high schools in the Newcastle County Votek District today which includes Howard. The other three schools were built at least 102 years after Howard. Howard currently has the least number of students of the four schools and therefore less state funding resources. Black students in all four Votek schools including Howard and Delaware's private and charter schools are currently voicing concerns about encountering racial bias in their schools. This is happening today in the 21st century. In conclusion, America is on the verge of forging a new economic and educational path but owing to human nature are painful past practices and old ways of doing things are reemerging. It is only when the true stories about America's past educational injustices are fully captured and constantly displayed in public view that we can begin to fully honestly and truthfully address them and have the opportunity to eliminate them. Today we are back where we started because we have failed to arm ourselves with the true history and stories of our past. We cannot afford as a nation to regress back into the racist misdeeds of America's past. Thank you very much for your attention and now Mr. Hill will tell you about the good things that are happening at the Howard High School of Technology today. Mr. Hill, to you slide nine please. Good afternoon. Thank you, Ms. Dixon. And my tenure here as principal of Howard High School from the last three years. My charge in my mission along with my staff is to not make this school a secret anymore we want this to be the best well known secret. And over the last three years we have increased our enrollment significantly. In my first year we were at 750 to this year to 900. The goal is to be at capacity of 1000 students, and we're well on our way to advertise what we do here our goal and mission is to provide students in Newcastle County with world class CTE career and technical experiences. We have stated our facilities. All of our CTE instructors come from come from the field and industry and our educating our students and all the techniques that we are trying to prepare them for to go on to the workforce right away. Our newest program we have 14 careers but the newest one is teacher Academy and one way that our district is preparing our students is to look at a national need. We all know that educators are dwindling in numbers, fewer and fewer students are are enrolling in education programs and universities. So Newcastle County will take and Howard is taking on the initiative to not only prepare Black and Brown students to go into the field but also come back and teach in Delaware. We also are looking at dual enrollment opportunities, looking for opportunities for our students to have partnerships with colleges and universities nearby to make sure that we are leaving students with the opportunity to either leave with a certification and or college credit. We have different community initiatives. One is called the fam forever movement. As Miss Dixon spoke about racial tensions sparked to a new high with several cases two summers ago, and we wanted to give students a voice. And within our diversity equity inclusion work. We are also grooming leaders. So we have two programs Howard leading ladies and Howard men of distinction so in addition to building them academically and building them in their CTE course we're also honing in on their leadership skills. Next slide, amidst all of the impact of the pandemic over the last few years Howard still has a graduation rate of 92%, which is something we're extremely proud of. As part of our program and we often looked for our students to have the opportunity to go and co-op and work in the fields that they spent three years studying. We want them to have real world experiences and paid internships we have more than 40 local businesses within the city and the surrounding areas that employ our students. 80% of our students are seniors are eligible to participate. In addition to our academics and our CTE, we have championship athletics and all of our sports to have our students have more well rounded experience. Next slide. My goal is to be the bridge between the shoulders we stand on from the original Howard, Howard Skill Center and now Howard School of Technology. It is important for us to look at the facilities we have, educate our current students on the history of the school they attend and not only educate them but connect them to alumni like Ms. Dixon. We have opportunities where our students are able to connect and participate in activities where we honor alumni from the past but also participate in their program that they have currently. We have some upcoming program initiatives that we're looking to really highlight, creating courses and educate where students can walk the hallways. So we're going to work with University of Delaware potentially to create a Howard history that every student and how we're getting opportunity to learn about so they get to see the facilities but also learn more in depth history about the school they attend. We have a current partnership with Wilmington police and the state police to increase the number of minority students that are going into law enforcement. Again I spoke of the racial tension that sparked with the George Floyd case, but only through education and through communication that we can better the circumstance in the community. We need people from the community to police the community and be more aware of what's going on in their own communities. In addition, we have added information technology program where our students will earn 30 college credits upon graduation where they will attend Dell Tech for one additional year and will be able to transfer right into a four year university. So Howard is on a cutting edge in so many ways and continuing to carry the torch that was set in 1927. Next slide. This is just a few images of the finished construction in our 1927 building. Our students get a chance to walk the halls of historic building but in a world class setting so we are extremely proud of where we're going. We're extremely proud of the lineage that we come from, and I urge you all if you haven't had a chance to come visit please come visit us. If you have eighth grade students who are looking for a high school home, I urge you to come take a tour. Our staff is amazing. We have an outstanding culture and climate, and we are on the rise. So I thank you for giving us the opportunity to share a little bit of our school today and for you to learn about where our school came from. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next, we have Clemont High School with Allison David and Joan Anderson. So first Allison David is the chief executive officer of the Clemont Community Center. Allison is driven by the desire to help people make positive changes in their lives through her hand up, not hand out world view. For three decades, she has created, designed and executed and grown effective social service programs and services. Relationships and connections are focal points of her efforts as she believes people who work together grow stronger together. She strives to maximize mission impact by building mutually beneficial partnerships within our diverse communities. Allison seeks to involve stakeholders from across the community, families, businesses, nonprofit organizations, elected and appointed government leaders, and other key stakeholders to expand the center's scope and reach. Then we have Joan Elizabeth Anderson, who was born in 1938 to Dr. Leon and Bula Anderson in Wilmington, Delaware. She attended Wilmington Elementary and Howard High Schools. The Anderson family moved to Ardencroft, a suburb of Clemont, Delaware in the late spring of 1952 at the invitation of the Ardencroft community, which wanted black families to live there. She attended Clemont High School and became part of the Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit. Joan graduated from Clemont in 1956. She next attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee for two years and transferred to Boston University, where she graduated in 1960 with a BFA degree. In 2006, Joan was honored along with 11 other Clemont students with a plaque, first state, first school, first student to integrate. And the Delaware State Senate honored her with a certificate of appreciation for being part of the first court mandated integration of a public school in the United States. Now I give you Clemont High School. Thank you Leslie. It is absolutely a pleasure to join everyone for this webinar. The Clemont story is a story of bravery. It's a story of doing what's right, and it's a legacy for the community. Next slide. Clemont High School was built in Clemont, Delaware in 1924. Its story of integration is truly an example of the community working together in order to integrate. The story demonstrates the bravery of so many people, and I'm honored to be part of telling this story. I want to thank the people that I interviewed for this presentation, and specifically my co-presenter Joan who will be speaking shortly. Next slide. As you heard, in 1950, the only high school opened to African American students in Delaware was Howard High School. This meant that children in Clemont were forced to literally pass by Clemont High School and travel 20 miles round trip to Howard. The parents wanted their kids in their local schools. So they sought legal counsel from Lewis Redding, the prominent African American attorney, who urged them to seek admission into Clemont High School. The children were denied, and in July of 1951, Redding filed a lawsuit seeking their admission. Redding set out to challenge the notion of racially segregated public schools and develop litigation using the name of one of the parents in the Clemont case, Ethel Belton. The case named the State Board of Education as the principal defendant, and the board members were specifically charged. The first name among the members was Francis B. Gebhart, resulting in the case filed as Belton versus Gebhart. In the meantime, the local Clemont schools board knew that in order to integrate, there would have to be a lawsuit and they were in support of that. Virginia Trion is the daughter of Stager Trion, a member of the local school board at the time. She recalls that her father and others wanted the community to integrate because it was simply the right thing to do. Everyone knew that they were facing a tough legal battle, but the parents and the school board bravely decided to move forward. In April of 1952, Chancellor Collins J. Seitz, presiding judge of the Delaware Court of Chancery, directed the immediate admittance of the African American plaintiff's children into Clemont High School. His decision was appealed, but upheld by the Delaware Supreme Court. Next slide. Based on Chancellor Seitz's decision, Clemont High School prepared to admit 12 African American students in September of 1952. On September 3rd, the local Clemont school board called the Attorney General every hour, waiting for an official mandate. Virginia remembers that her father, Sager, was pacing the floors of their house all day waiting for that call. At a special late night meeting, they received a call from the State Board of Education, giving them verbal permission for the children to be admitted. On September 4th, the African American students attended the first day of high school. On September 5th, unfortunately, the Delaware Attorney General called the school board chair with instructions to send the children home because the case had been appealed. They defied that order. They allowed the children to stay. This was another moment when everyday people simply did the right thing. Next slide. The original students admitted to Clemont High School are referred to as the Clemont 12. 11 of the students began school, and one student decided to stay at Howard High School. These are truly civil rights pioneers. Next slide. I am deeply honored to introduce Joan Anderson, one of the original Clemont 12 and a graduate of Clemont High School, class of 1956. Joan will be sharing her thoughts on those early days and the legacy of this decision. Joan. Hello. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited to be inviting me to this webinar. And I'm excited to tell my story about Clemont High. I was there for four years, and I graduated in 1956. But my story begins in Wilmington, as been noted here, that my family was born and I was raised there. Wilmington, Delaware was segregated. I was segregated residential areas, and my family lived in one of them. So actually I grew up playing with children from all races. So I had some integration there a little bit there before I eventually moved to Clemont. And we did move to Arden Croft. And 1952. We weren't part of the Belton versus Board of Education case at that point. We were there when it started in 1951, but we moved in the spring of 1952, where the case was in the Delaware Supreme Court. And in August of 28th, when the case was upheld, we were able then to attend Clemont and just to tell you, it was a little disconcerting at the time because we didn't know where we were going to go to school. So we had that phone call that Allison was talking about that we could actually attend Clemont. And so we did attend on the fourth. We were admitted on the fifth we did we were there. And, but on the fourth, we actually attended school. And it was incredibly good situation that day. Because we were so well received in Claymont, the city of Claymont, both races lived in the same area side by side. So there was a lot of interaction, the both races and they both wanted integration. And that's what helped make Claymont successful. The school board at Claymont wanted integration. The both races wanted integration. And so they fought for it. They even did a couple of things that were illegal to achieve it, but they just decided that they should live together, that they should go to school together. And so that's what happened. We went to school my mother had told me later that the teachers came up to her hugged her and thank her for sending her children there. And so it, it turned out to be a really good experience. It was like kept undercover, so that there were no reporters. There were no marches, there was just nothing we just automatically went to school that day, September 4. And for the next four years, it was a really good experience because I had already been in a semi integrated environment in Wilmington that I moved to Ardencroft, which was a completely white neighborhood, and then into Claymont, which was now integrated. So it was just a really good experience, but I have to say that they were about three incidences that happened, but they were swiftly dealt with by the school board, one of them involved my oldest sister when she graduated two years later. The students were supposed to walk down the aisle. The one boy on one side and then next would be next to him would be a girl. And so when the boy who was supposed to walk down with with my sister Merle. He ran out before he, you know, could walk down with her, but the boy behind her immediately just walked up and took his place and nobody really notice what had happened but the school board did notice. When the diplomas were given out, his was blank, but eventually they did give him his diploma. Another incident was when my sister Carol was a taunted by a boy, a teacher saw it, heard it, went over and just slap the boy. You couldn't get away with that today but in those days you could you, if you were slapped by the teacher and you went home and told your parents what happened they would ask you what did you do to deserve that. So, it was just a different time. And, but things were going well for me, and for the rest of the students. In fact, I could say that when Howard High's football team came to play our team. That's how you could tell how we really felt about being in clay month, because we all sat on the clay month side, we had an opportunity to go sit on the Howard High side, but we all leavened on the side on the clay month side, and it. That's how we felt about the school we were so well received, but it also my takeaway from this is the unity of the two races together. And that's what I've taken into past play month into Howard High, and to this university and Boston University. And to my life today is the unity. Things worked better together when people are united the races are united. And so this is my story and I really enjoyed the four years that I had at clay month. Thank you. Joan, thank you so much. I wish we had more time because you have, I know a lot more stories to share. You bring this presentation to life. I have a bunch of slides with dates, but your shared experience is just wonderful so thank you. Next slide please. I also interviewed Martha Trotter, one of the other clay month 12. Well, I think what the students did was tremendously brave. She didn't see herself that way. In fact, she wanted me to point out her thoughts around the bravery of the parents and she said, Our parents should be honored for fighting for their children. They were the ones that got the ball rolling. And I couldn't agree more. While it wasn't perfect, the integration in clay month was peaceful and remains an important part of the Delaware story. We are proud to be one of the cases cited in Brown versus the Board of Education. Next slide. Brown High School is now home to the Claymont Community Center, a nonprofit anchor in the community for over 45 years. We think it's extremely special to note that Sager try on who was on the local clay month school board was also one of our founding members. This legacy of inclusion and diversity is central to our mission to enhance the community by addressing the human needs of wellness belongingness and esteem. We provide educational recreational and social support to all people, and all people are welcomed here. We are thrilled to be part of this larger conversation to recognize the contribution that Claymont High School made to end separate but equal education. And we work with the community now to continue to push for full equity for all Americans. Thank you. Thank you so much, Joan and Allison. That was a great presentation. Next, we have Ho Kesson Colored School number 107C with David Wilk and Sonny Knot. David Wilk is the board chair of Friends of Ho Kesson Colored School number 107C. He is also an assistant professor of finance and director of the real estate program at Temple University Fox School of Business. He's over 30 years of real estate teaching experience between the University of Delaware Learner College of Business, Johns Hopkins Kerry Business School and Georgetown University. Mr. Wilk is also a management consultant who creates a value in today's market for corporations, private equity firms, governments, universities, healthcare systems and nonprofits through asset optimization strategies that generate new earnings, valuations, market feasibility studies, placemaking, economic development strategies and innovative marketing plans. We also have James Sonny Knot who's on the board of Friends of Ho Kesson Colored School number 107C. More importantly, he actually attended Ho Kesson from 1937 to 1944. He was an avid baseball player, having been close friends with the legendary Judy Johnson, and he's also been a mentor at the Castle High School, impacting many public school students. Next, we'll hear from Ho Kesson. Thank you very much, Leslie, and thank you so much for the National Trust for giving us the ability to share our stories about Delaware's role in Brown v. Board of Education. It's really a treat to be here, and given our timing, we'll work through. Again, I'm David Wilk. I'm chair of the Ho Kesson Friends of Ho Kesson Colored School number 107, and we're a nonprofit public charity that was brought together in 2012 to save the former Ho Kesson School from share of sale, because it had been subject to mechanics leans, and it was about a week away from being share of sale that I'm losing the legacy of this priceless community asset. So all of us at Friends of Ho Kesson Colored School, next slide please. Our volunteers, and everyone on this page has spent, we're a, as I said, in our last year's Brown v. Board of Education, Delaware Day, we're a 10 year overnight success, and being being able to look back 10 years and say, Wow, we were able to save the school. But the most important thing about our mission, and it really builds on what you've heard so eloquently from the Howard Howard High School of Technology and Claymont Community Center speakers before us, is that these three places are priceless assets with monumental history behind them. And the events of today, the events starting in 2020 have really reignited the need to never forget this history, and to be able to use this history as a catalyst for creating better human behavior and the future. And that's really where we spend the lion's share of our journey as friends of Ho Kesson Colored School to be able to come up with the concept of building, taking the history and the inspiration of Bula v. Gephardt, which happened at our school, and have it transform this place into a value creation vehicle for all people in the future. And so our mission is very simple, transforming Ho Kesson school number 107C into a center for diversity inclusion and social equity. Next slide please. And what a amazing canvas to paint this future vision on, then the history of the school, you can see the legendary Brown v. Board legal team, including Lewis Redding and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and Oliver Hill, Robert Carter and Spotswood Robinson. And then you can see that the two primary cases in Delaware that became fundamental to Brown v. Board were Bula v. Gephardt versus Belton v. Gephardt as well. So Emma Lazarus couldn't put it any better until we are all free, we are none of us free. And so we're next slide please. So what we're really doing is we're taking this building, and this is a rendering of what it looks like we're actually under construction. This building was originally built in 1920 by Pierre S Dupont, and it was one of the only colored schools that was built by Pierre Dupont in the state of Delaware that happened to be built out of beautiful red brick, and it still exists today. We just had the brick reappointed. It's just a little small building 2200 plus or minus square feet. Next slide please. And what had happened under the previous owners is they had done an expansion to the building, and unfortunately they tore down the historic rear wall of the original school building. So we were left to come up with an idea on how to reimagine and renovate and refurbish this so the idea will be to we added a 277 square foot addition as part of our phase one of our center. Next slide please. And then as we evolved a little bit more we said, well we want to keep as much of the building intact as possible because of this historic character. If we're putting a large patio out there why don't we cover the patio with a beautiful canopy that allows us to not only use the 2000 square feet that we have but also to add another 1500 to 2000 square feet of usable space. So next slide please. So this is what it looks like as of about a week and a half ago. We have five acres which is really a gift to be able to to enjoy and create indoor and outdoor events. And we are under construction, and the, if everything goes well we will be able to get a certificate of occupancy at some point in June of this year, which is right around the corner. Again, the whole idea is we have this amazing history of Bula V. Gephardt and Brown v Board of Education. But how do we really take something from a programming and from a inspirational standpoint and really turn it into something that has incredible impact for the community into the future. And so that's really and where we began that slide please. We began that this is just the floor plan, just showing how the rooms will be redesigned where we'll have exhibits and a sound studio to do national podcast a multi purpose room, and a conference room and next slide please. And but where really all began in the beginning of our journey was with the former students who are still alive today who went to the school, including our, our leader, sunny not who I'm happy to introduce to all of you right now, sunny welcome and, you know please feel free to share your perspectives. So if you can turn on your video and unmute your, unmute your mic. There we go. And then just the mic to. Okay. Perfect. Can you hear me now. We can. Thank you very much. Yes, I have the, the fortunate good time of attending the 107 C. I started there in 1937 in the second grade because my family originally was in Maryland. I was in the first grade down in a little town called Allentown, but coming to hook us and was a treat for me. And this school is very, very important to the few of us that's left because I'm in my 90s so you know there's not many of us left right now so we're looking forward to this. This great day. When I attended to the 107 with a one room school with six grades and one teacher. And the next many times of how did the teacher control all of you kids with only by herself, but you have to realize back doing that data was a lot of discipline. And the last thing we wanted was for our parents to come to school, because you messed up, because my mother came to school. You can bet I just never laid down and died because she was going to kill me anyway they didn't tolerate the disrespect that goes on now and some of the schools. But we had one room with six rows of seats each row seat was a great. You went 1234 when you got to the sixth grade you left there and you went to Howard. As it mentioned before Howard is the only high school in the state of Delaware. So you see that's why this is so important to us, we're looking forward to that day in June that when we can all gather together and walk through that door. One more time. I just want to walk through that wide door has been closed so long and we were so excited that the historical society is saving this building that way I can bring my grandchildren to show them where I got to start because people don't believe that you went to a one room and accomplish all you have to the day, but that's what we did and we'll thankful for it so I once again I thank the committee and all those that are involved and look forward to the great day. Hopefully by the end of June, I'll still be here. God bless you. Thank you so much sunny you have to be here. That is our mission, and you are our motivation and you're such a you and Charlie and Robert and Blanche and Charlie and Lois all of the students that we've had. That's the greatest gift of all for us at Hocassion is to get to know all of you and to see the sheer joy in your eyes and to know the joy in your heart of being able to take this place of incredible meaning in so many people's lives and turning it into something that's going to have a whole new life. We're going to light it up in this place in the future sunny in your and all the other students honor and so getting into the programming next slide please. This is where the secret sauce is for what we're going to do our programming focus and I'd like to introduce Dr Lynette Edward to has been incredibly active and involved and pushing our programming focus into the schools and also working in a number of different areas so Lynette, welcome to our program. Well, thank you, David for one invitation and thank you everyone for allowing me to be a part of this wonderful webinar. As you're looking at the slide I just want to give a little bit of information about our center without reading the slide to you just give you a little bit more background of what our center is about in the program focus. Our center incorporates the legacy and presence of the African American schoolhouse in Hockess and Delaware and there are three pillars of that legacy. The first one is the initial schoolhouse structure. There was a structure in 1829, a structure in 1878 and a structure in 1920. One of those pillars is that single room brick house built by Pierre S. DuPont, which operated as a school from 1920 to 1959. And our third pillar of our legacy is the Hockess in case of Bula V. Gephard, which became an affiliate case of the Brown v Board of Education. It was a 1954 decision. So from the well documented letter writing campaign of Mr Fred Bula, and his second wife, Miss Sarah Bula, on behalf of their adopted daughter Shirley Barbara Bula, all the way to the filing of the Bula V. Gephard case, which occurred on August the 17 1951 by Attorney Lewis Redding, the Hockess in Color School 107 role in education has remained a living history for student learning. As you're looking at this slide, we're talking about what our center will be involved in and our center is engaged in tangible actions to broaden educational horizons and experiences throughout our state. We are currently collaborating with our elected officials who have passed legislation here in the state House Bill number 198 to address and embrace the contributions of our hidden figures that would include the Bula V. Gephard case and the Belton v Gephard case. Our center will provide workshops and training programs and opportunities for participants to engage in personal and professional development and a location that epitomizes what we like to say the impacts of the domestic tranquility that we want to see among humankind. We at the Friends of Hockess and Color School 107 unite with our partner sites to provide a narrative of our state's involvement and that monumental US Supreme Court decision. On April 1, 1952, the Delaware Court of Chance reset that cornerstone for our nation. On August 28, 1952, the Delaware Supreme Court laid the foundation, and on May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court, our nation chartered that new course for American education. And incorporating our whole custom role of 107. It is our hope that our living history for student learning, and that small building, along with our diversity training workshop programs, and a safe place to have community conversations will help us become that wonderful hub for collaboration. We're so looking forward to the trajectory of opening our new center, and all of you been involved in coming to Delaware to share in our wonderful celebration of what we have done here in the state of Delaware to open the conversation about the pinnacle part place and part that Delaware case is played in Brown v Board of Education. Thanks David and I look forward to the questions that are coming through the chat. Awesome. Thank you Dr Lynette. And the key thing is on the programming. We've developed quite a few number of partners in our programming and the key thing would be that we're all really struggling and I include myself at the top of that list on trying to create that higher levels of cultural competency and to really understand what it's like to have experienced racism or gender issues or bias or ethnicity or religion and to be able to teach people how to be more competent culturally and also how to really make the world a better place. There's been an awful lot of polarization in the last few years and we feel like between all of our locations and all of our hearts and souls that there really is an opportunity to bring the people that are conscious enough to realize that we're all equal and that we need to all treat each other equally and respect each other equally and having the late legacy of what happened in our school and at Howard and Claymont as a foundation to be able to create this type of social change and also what I call to elevate people's understanding of what social infrastructure is in the future is really unlimited, limited opportunity and we just feel like the programming is really the key to that. Next slide please. So, most of all, as we close out our presentation, we would love, we would like to express our tremendous amount of gratitude for all of the people whose shoulders we stand on, and all of the people that have been integral in getting us to reach this last occasion of being hopefully 60 days plus or minus away from being able to have Sunny and the students walk back through the door again. And in particular, thank you to the National Trust Leslie and Pam and Priya and everyone who's been so inclusive of us and bringing us into the whole National Park Service Affiliate Site process. And students, as we said, we have gotten to know you and love you, and you are our inspiration for all we do as volunteers and, and it's really hard to capture. There's Coons and Carper and representative Lisa Blunt Rochester and particular Senator Jim Clyburn, Senator or Governor John Carney and Newcastle County Executive Matt Meyer. We are so dedicated and accessible and supportive, and in every way to us being able to get to the point where we are today, that it's just amazing that they, they care so much about all this and have really been the ones that have allowed us to get to this point in so many ways. So we're full of gratitude and we're also full of excitement and anticipation about what we can do that really will be transformational to the future of society and that's a pretty lofty goal but I think everyone that's on this call is invited to join the party and help us to create better communities more unity and better understanding and acceptance of each other, regardless of any other factor. Thank you so much. Thank you. We were actually over time but are there any questions that we can answer. Absolutely. This is Brad, there's one from D Durham that you might want to respond to in the Q&A. I can read it if you'd like me to. Yeah, can you. Okay. It's a from D the effort for recognition for these schools is fabulous our understanding is that the ship was reluctant to pursue national register status for Hawkinson, because it's interior lacks historic integrity the exterior however is very much intact such significant buildings should be on the register which is separate question, which is a separate question from the designation. How can we all work together to make this happen to gain NPS support. I can answer that D. How are you thank you for your question it's good to good to hear from you. We have a plan for the property involving working with the county. Sorry, hold on. We're working with the county and other stakeholders and particularly the historic review board to ultimately get put a historic overlay in place for the school. We get our occupancy and once we finish up what we're doing and we have some plans and I haven't had a chance to catch up with you on that are really exciting as far as how we can make that work. And we have no problem trying to continue to create national registration as well. So, and that's something that we always plan to do, but we really felt a tremendous sense of urgency, because the students are, we're losing. We've lost some of our students, former students recently over the end 2022 Mr and Mrs Jean Fleming, Robert and Jean. So I'm going to try and get everyone to walk through the door again as soon as possible and we will absolutely be historically preserving everything about the property that we can. Another question just came in and I think Leslie your Pam can respond to this but is the focus of the National Trust work primary in New Cap, primarily in New Castle County, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about the other sites. So no, so in general, the work of the National Trust is not just centered in New Castle County. For this particular project. The work of the trust is centered around sites in South Carolina, DC, Virginia, Kansas, and then in Delaware. It's focused on sites related to the Brown v Ford case. So not just New Castle County. And I just put in the chat the first link of a series of webinars that we've been doing on this work over the last year or so. That link is for the first webinar but if you scroll all the way at the bottom I've got links to the other three we have done and I'll add the recording for this one on this page as well as well as putting it on its own page. I think those are all the questions that we've gotten in the chat. Um, and so Leslie I'm going to leave it to you to close us out. Okay. Um, so since we're over time. So the next one is keep the discussion going on form connect. This is our online community for people in the business of saving places. We have active conversations happening all week around topics from section 106 to women's history at historic sites. If you haven't joined connect yet you should it's a great place to keep up this conversation and start more. Please join us for these upcoming preservation leadership forum webinars on April 12 at 2pm Eastern we will be hosting a webinar calculating carbon savings from building reuse and retrofit. And finally, thank you to everyone who attended today's webinar, a special thank you to our speakers for sharing their knowledge and expertise with us. If you have any questions following this webinar, please don't hesitate to contact us. Our email is forum at saving places.org. Thank you.