John Mercer Langston School
Langston is an exceptional example of an African American school built during the District’s segregated school system era.
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John Mercer Langston Elementary School was built in 1902 to handle the overflow of students from neighboring John Fox Slater School. Named for John Mercer Langston (1829-1897), the first African-American congressman from Virginia, who also had a distinguished career in the District of Columbia, the school was one of several schools for African American children along the North Capitol Street corridor.
In the late 1910s it merged with Slater Elementary School to become Slater-Langston and became an independent school again in 1951. The red brick two-story Italianate style building was designed by influential architect Appleton P. Clark. The eight classroom school has two towers on the front elevation marking the girls’ and boys’ entrances.
DC Inventory: October 27, 2011
National Register: April 9, 2013
