Francis Junior High School, which opened in 1928, was the District's first purpose-built junior high for African American students. The original building, dating to 1927-29, was designed by DC Municipal Architect Albert L. Harris in a Renaissance Revival style. Many public buildings are attributed to Harris, who is known for his Renaissance Revival and Colonial Revival designs. The school is named for Dr. John R. Francis (1856-1913), who was an African American physician, DC Board of Education member, and Howard University Trustee.

In response to population growth and overcrowded classrooms, new school construction in the District accelerated during the interwar period. This construction was spurred by the Five-Year School Building Program Act of 1925. Just prior to the passage of this federal legislation, in 1920, the DC Board of Education established the junior high school concept, taking two grades from elementary school and one grade from high school.

Following the establishment of junior high schools in the District, Shaw Junior High School — which first occupied the former M Street High School building, followed by the former McKinley Manual Traing School building — opened in 1919-20. Shaw was the first junior high school for DC's African American students. Francis Junior High School, which was completed in 1927 and dedicated the following year, was the District's first purpose-built junior high for African Americans. Two years later, in 1929, Garnet-Patterson Junior High School was completed and became the second purpose-built junior high for African Americans. The DC school system would continue to be racially segregated until the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bolling v. Sharpe (1954).

Since 2024, the school has been known as the John Francis Educational Campus. This followed school consolidations in the early 21st century, including the closure of Thaddeus Stevens School.

The oldest part of the John Francis Educational Campus, was designed by Harris and dates to 1927-29. It consists of four, three-story wings surrounding a two-story auditorium — all clad in brick masonry. The primary elevation and main entrance, located on the south wing, face N Street NW. The first floor of this elevation is clad in limestone.

The south wing, at three-stories tall; east and west wings, both originally at two-stories in height; and auditorium were completed in 1927. Two years later, an additional floor was added to the east and west wings, and the north wing, at three-stories tall, was completed, enclosing the auditorium on all sides. In addition to its modern auditorium, the school featured vocational classrooms.

School buildings constructed in phases, referred to as "extensible," were common in DC at the time. This approach, which came in three styles/layouts, allowed for additions as needed, due to student population increases, and as funding permitted.

A compatible, two-story addition, connecting to the east elevation of the original building, was designed by DC Municipal Architect Merrell Coe and completed in 1953. Over 70 years later, in 2024, a three-story addition was completed just to the west of the 1927-29 building, and the 1953 addition was expanded. The expansion of the 1953 addition resulted in a new, enclosed courtyard ("outdoor classroom"). At the time, the entire complex was rehabilitated and modernized, and rebranded as the John Francis Educational Campus.

DC Inventory: December 18, 2025

National Register: February 23, 2026

Within Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway Historic District

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The Lucy Diggs Slowe Elementary School first opened in 1945 in response to a lawsuit against segregated schooling in DC. John Preston Davis attempted to enroll his five-year old son at Noyes Elementary School in 1944, yet was rejected based upon race. Mr. Davis, a Harvard Law School graduate and co-founder of the National Negro Congress, pursued legal action against DC Public Schools. His son would’ve been required to walk 17 blocks to school, despite being less than half a mile from four all-white schools. After a legal battle involving discussions of home rule, race, and constitutionality, the U.S. Congress allotted $44,000 dollars to build a school for the Black residents of Brookland in June 1944. A temporary school building opened in 1945 (as the Crummell School Annex) at 1325 Jackson Street NE. Soon after, the Board of Education approved renaming the new school after Lucy Diggs Slowe, a prominent DC educator who worked as a public school principal and professor at Howard University. Designed by Municipal Architect Nathan Wyeth and completed by his successor, Merrell Coe (following Wyeth’s death in 1946), the school officially opened in 1948. Designed in a modern style, the rectangular building is a concrete structure with pre-cast concrete decorative paneling, glass blocks, and horizontal banks of window openings. Upon first opening, the space had five available classrooms and capacity for 180 pupils.  Located at the intersection of Jackson and 14^th Streets NE in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, DC, the new school quickly became overcrowded. Conditions were inadequate for learning and created dangerous fire hazards. In turn, parents used strikes, community organizing, and student protest to communicate their dissatisfaction and demands for better educational space. Overcrowding at Slowe was finally resolved through the legal desegregation of public schools in the District in the landmark Supreme Court case of Bolling v. Sharpe, which went into effect in 1954. Despite a building renovation in 1967 that added a library and additional classroom/storage space, the school continued to face consistent problems. The displacement and eventual decline of Black residents in DC in the 1960s and 1970s, combined with the increase in charter schools in the 1990s, resulted in the closure of Slowe Elementary School in 2009. Today, the building houses the Mary McLeod Bethune Day Academy Public Charter School. As part of DC’s local history and the larger national history of Blacks organizing for equality, the Slowe Elementary School is significant as both a space for civil rights activism in the realm of education and an early example of modern architecture.

DC Inventory: October 28, 2021

National Register: December 20, 2021

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Built between 1951 and 1952, Spingarn High School was constructed for the education of African American students, meant to relieve the overcrowding of the other segregated high schools and had been planned for that purpose since the late 1930s. Desegregation lawsuits of the late 1940s and early 1950s finally prodded the District to construct the building. Its postwar construction represented an attempt to satisfy African American parents while keeping alive the “separate but equal” regime in the public schools. Spingarn was thus Washington's last “Black” high school, and the first built in 36 years. Its opening was a major event, drawing not only the family of its namesake but also such luminaries as W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and John Hope Franklin. Only two years later, the process of desegregation began.

The school’s name honored Joel Elias Spingarn, a renowned literary critic, professor of comparative literature at Columbia, and one of the early founders of the NAACP, who served as both the chairman of the board and president during his 26-year tenure with the organization. Spingarn High School provided a complete curriculum to prepare its students for life after high school. It included a housekeeping suite for home economics students, clothes-making classrooms, modern workshops such as carpentry and print shops, and laboratories.

Spingarn is also the last of the District’s era of Classical and Colonial Revival style schools. In its time, it was considered one of the most modern schools in the District. The school’s long-deferred construction, coupled with its siting on a campus of earlier African American schools, is probably responsible for this architectural anomaly.

The school is currently being rehabilitated and, once open, will serve as the DC Infrastructure Academy Training Center.

DC Inventory: November 29, 2012

National Register: May 12, 2014

Within Young, Browne, Phelps and Spingarn Educational Campus Historic District; and Kingman Park Historic District

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