Central High School is Kansas City’s oldest public school. It originally opened not long after the Civil War back in 1867, and it was then considered to be among the top high schools in the country for generations.
It is also a school long defined by a single word: race.
In 1955, the school only had white students. In 1962, just seven years later, every student in the school was Black. It was a stunning transformation, made possible by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education.
The long history of Central High School at 32nd and Indiana is told in a new book, "Urban Education: Kansas City’s Central High School and the Enduring Legacy of Racism."
The book's author, Dr. Bradley Poos of UMKC, joined KCUR to talk about the school's history.
- Dr. Bradley Poos, Sprint endowed professor in urban education and associate director of the Institute of Urban Education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
