Review | How a network of D.C. schools produced giants of American art

The art room at Armstrong, one of D.C.'s first high schools for African American students, was 'a beautiful place, just where I belonged.' - Alma Thomas

Such aspiring artists and performers as pianist Billy Taylor, sculptor and graphic artist Elizabeth Catlett, and flutist and printmaker Lloyd McNeill were nurtured by Dunbar High School, the nation's first public high school for African American students.

After the D.C. school system's racial integration in 1954, Black students also attended McKinley Tech, which was originally the White equivalent to Armstrong.

Howard University developed an influential art department in 1921, the first at a historically Black college or university, with notable artists like Loïs Mailou Jones teaching there.

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