Verbena Wright-Reed remembers walking a few miles to catch both bus and trolley to get from Overland to St. Louis to attend Sumner High School in the mid-1930s. At the time, Wright-Reed could not attend school in Overland because she is Black.
The 105-year-old did not think she would live long enough to see the day when nearly a thousand people would be celebrating the sesquicentennial anniversary of her former high school.
“Being here, I'm just so full of happiness,” she said with a closed-mouth smile.
Wright-Reed was the guest of honor at Sumner High School’s annual alumni celebration on Saturday. She is the oldest-known alumna. While at the all-Black high school, she was a member of the girls basketball team, the sewing club, the hiking club, the typewriting club and the golf team. The retired educator graduated in 1939 and attended Stowe Teachers College shortly after.
“I was flying high as a child,” she said. “[Sumner High School] is No. 1, and they have given us the best.”
The centenarian was not the only one beaming with joy last weekend at the high school’s yearly celebration. Women and men were giving minute-long hugs, kissing cheeks, roaring with laughter and reminiscing about their time at Sumner while celebrating at the Hyatt Regency in downtown St. Louis.
Alumni representing the classes of 1939 through 2025 showed their pride and school spirit by wearing Sumner's school colors of maroon and white. There were maroon sequin dresses, white and maroon suits and other shades of red.
This reunion is a way to preserve African American history and culture, said 1972 graduate E.W. Clay.
“We have to organize the youth in the whole region and let them know about this jewel that they have that has this fire, this ember that hasn't gone out, because the alumni are making sure that that doesn't happen,” Clay said.
For Clay, the fire was instilled in him decades ago by his former teachers, who he said left lasting impressions on him as a young Black teenager.
“I was introduced to W.E.B. Du Bois, and there was a famous music teacher, Kenneth Brown Billups, anybody from probably [classes of] 1952 to about 1978 will tell you about Kenneth Brown Billups,” he said ecstatically. “He was a personal friend of Paul Leroy Robeson, the famous concert singer, activist and linguist.”
The retired public policy administrator said Sumner gave him a unique experience because his teachers taught him how to be an activist in addition to being an expert in whatever field he chose.
“Our teachers were so excellent, and they usually came from very established schools,” he said. “A lot of our teachers had advanced degrees, but they were prohibited from teaching at some of the schools that they graduated from because of their skin color, so they had to come to Sumner and teach below what their training was, but they still delivered that advanced training to the students.”
Clay came to the gala to meet up with former classmates, but his mission was to better understand what he can do to help protect the legacy of Sumner High School.
A historic Black school
Charles Sumner High School opened in 1875 at 11th and Spruce streets. The building was an old all-white school in downtown St. Louis. Sumner became the first high school west of the Mississippi River to graduate African American students. The school was a response to an increase in the African American population in St. Louis during the mid-to-late 1800s and the difficulty Black people had attending school because of racism. Toward the end of slavery, the area was home to about 4,000 Black people, but by 1880, there were about 41,000 living in the city.
Twenty years later, the school moved to a larger building downtown, and in 1910, the St. Louis Board of Education moved the school to 4248 Cottage Ave. in the former bustling Ville neighborhood. The school was in the center of a Black universe for St. Louisans who faced racism, segregation and discrimination. The Ville neighborhood had Black colleges and trade schools, churches, Black-owned businesses and health care systems and was the epicenter to the city’s Black entertainment district.
Over the years, the school produced locally known educators, entertainers, athletes, medical professionals, scientists, artists, entrepreneurs and activists. As well as greats such as Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Tina Turner and Chuck Berry, actor and activist Dick Gregory, famed tennis star Arthur Ashe, and founder of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority Ethel Hedgeman Lyle, a number of Tuskegee Airmen and opera singer Grace Bumbry walked through the halls of Sumner over the past century.
But to alumni, the school’s legacy is more than the celebrities who graduated from the school.
The everyday people who contributed to the students and the community makes Sumner great, said alumna Warice Blackmon-Davis.
“I had a history teacher, his name was Mr. Blaylock … he would walk around the classroom, and he's just doing all these historical milestones, and his eyes would be closed,” she said. “I said [to myself] he's got stuff written in his eyelids or something, because he never had the book, and I’m thinking, ‘Well, I want to be like that.’”
Blackmon-Davis dedicated herself to follow in the footsteps of St Louis educator Julia Davis.
She works in St. Louis Public School's compliance department, and the 1980 graduate refers to herself as Sumner's historian. She can rattle off the history of the school in one full breath.
She also works with the alumni association to make students aware of the school's history.
“In my volunteer time at Sumner, I try to create events that are tied to Sumner’s history to give them that little edge. We adopted four schools and their second grade would come down and do Chuck Berry performances, Tina Turner performances,” she said. “Just before COVID, I also served them snacks that would be comparable to what they had in 1885 for the first graduation.”
Challenges ahead
Although the occasion was a joyous one, some alumni say it might be the last anniversary celebration.
“This might be sort of the last supper … there's been an effort to close the high school for a very long time,” 1973 graduate Pierre Blaine said. “Here we are now in a situation where we had the horrific tornado situation, and so now it's possible that that could be back on the table again.”
On May 16, an EF3 tornado significantly damaged several schools in north St. Louis, including Sumner. The damage forced school officials to send students to other schools in the district this fall. Because of the damage to Sumner’s roof, students will attend Stevens Middle School.
The district has already spent $96,000 on debris cleanup and $1.2 million to stabilize the schools that were damaged by the tornado. SLPS did not respond to a request for the total amount of damage Sumner suffered.
Blaine said the students, alumni and community have a serious fight ahead to keep its doors open.
“We see an erosion of … understanding what the historical significance has been of individuals and of institutions like Sumner High School, and so it kind of gives you a view of why it's important that we understand the historical context,” he said. “When you lack the historical context, then you don't see what's happening right before you, and right now we have to fight against people trying to erase history.”
But Blackmon-Davis looks at the change in school location as a blessing in disguise.
“This is what I call the ancestral cradling. George Edward Stevens, whom the middle school is named after, was one of the men who fought for Sumner to have the building that we have now.” she said. “So here it is, our building is falling apart, and we are landing in a space that was named after this man because of his contributions to the community, so how iconic is that?”
Superintendent Millicent Borishade said in a statement to St. Louis Public Radio earlier this summer that the district plans to reopen the school as soon as the building is deemed safe for reentry.
“Our teams are working diligently to assess the damage, plan the repairs, and ensure that when Sumner reopens, it will continue to provide the high-quality educational environment our students and families deserve,” she said.
Greater challenges have occurred over the years. In 2020, the district announced that officials were planning on closing 10 schools to save money, including Sumner. The school has been battling low enrollment and declining grade-point averages. In 2020, there were about 200 students enrolled, and that number recently doubled. In 2021, the district voted to save the historic school through Arts Pathways, a program at the school that partners with various community artists to help students learn more about the arts.
Class of 2025 graduate Dakota Scott credits her zeal for academia and the arts to the newly implemented arts program.
“While at Sumner, I was included in a lot of stuff, like drama, where we made movies, musical theater, where we did plays, fashion, where I was a model and designed a few things, and living arts, where I was able to go to competition … and go to nationals and Washington, D.C., to perform,” she said.
Scott said she is proud of the recent graduates because they overcame so many challenges, like attending school in an older building, lacking resources for the teachers and attending school in a dilapidated community. But she has faith that the district will keep Sumner around for the long run.
More recently, a new report came out last month that suggests the district should close 37 schools. It included 27 elementary schools, five middle schools and five high schools. However, the report did not specify which schools should be closed. It suggested closing down schools as the area’s population went down and because of the projected decrease in childbirth rates.
“I hope that they do not close my school down, because we are currently thriving, but I hope that with the funding that they're allegedly supposed to get from closing these schools down, that they will actually give us better-quality education,” Scott said.
