[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Page 21600]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              RECOGNIZING HOWARD HIGH SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY

 Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I wish to honor Howard High School 
of Technology in Wilmington, which is celebrating its 140th anniversary 
this month. This institution was the only high school for African 
Americans in my home State of Delaware until the 1920s and played an 
important role in the historic Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of 
Education.
  Howard High School was founded in 1869 as a four-room elementary 
school, which eventually began to graduate high school students in 
1893. Today, the school boasts 860 students in grades 9 through 12. 
Graduates earn both a high school diploma and a certificate of 
competency in one of 13 programs. Howard was a Blue Ribbon school in 
1997 and 1999 as a result of its students' academic success. It has 
also been a National Service Learning Leader School since 2000, 
receiving grants to engage students in service activities linked to 
academic achievement and civic responsibility.
  In April 2005, Howard High School was designated as a national 
landmark because of its significance in the 1954 Brown v. Board of 
Education case, which struck down the ``separate but equal'' doctrine 
and ended the segregation of public schools. Howard graduate Louis 
Redding worked with a team of lawyers, led by Thurgood Marshall, to win 
the landmark ruling. Delaware's specific case, Belton v. Gebhart, 
challenged the inferior conditions of two schools designated for 
African-American children. In the suburb of Claymont, African-American 
children were prohibited from attending the area's local high school. 
Instead, they had to ride a school bus for nearly an hour to attend 
Howard High.
  I congratulate Howard High School of Technology on its anniversary 
and wish its students, teachers, and administrators much success as it 
continues to serve as one of Wilmington's pre-eminent schools, open to 
all and fostering achievement in a number of academic fields.

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