Saturday, the Dunbar High School class of 1967 met for its 50-year class reunion.
Dunbar High School was the only colored school that provided education for grades 7-12 in Temple, until 1967, the year Temple Schools were desegregated.
Desegregation of public schools in Texas began in the late 1960s, as a result of the Supreme Court case United States vs. Texas. President Lyndon B. Johnson asked the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to investigate possible discrimination in several public school systems in Texas. As a result, the Department of Justice sued the state of Texas for not following laws concerning desegregation of public schools. The judge ruled in favor of desegregation, and thus began a new era of public education.
Students in the senior class had the option to attend Temple High, but most students stayed and finished their education at Dunbar.
There were too many memories to leave behind. Dunbar alumna Marion Hobson shared several at the reunion.
"If you were late, Mr. Meridith would be standing there with his arms folded and he knew every one of us by name," Hobson said. "I went to the office.. got wrote up."
Dunbar High did not have the same level of resources as Temple High, but Dunbar students did not let that deter them.
Class President Connie Harrison Jr. said the lack of resources wasn't a problem.
"We had what we needed to be successful," Harrison said. "I never hear anybody yet say, 'because I wasn't on the other side of town I wasn't successful."
In 1968, Dunbar was renamed Dunbar-Meridith High School in honor of Grover Cleveland Meredith. Dunbar-Meredith served as a high school until the campus was merged with Temple High School in 1968.
Not everyone from the 1967 Dunbar alumni class were able to make the reunion, but those who did attend spent the rest of the day visiting those at home or in nursing homes that couldn't make it.
Why?
Because Dunbar alumni always stay together like family.