"The ill wind of war would be doubly ill if it blew no good to us who have waited so long. Everywhere, therefore, barriers are falling and horizons are expanding; avenues we thought forever closed are yielding to the 'Open sesame' of national extremity. The vicious myth of master and slave races is waxing old like a garment. Here at long last is the flood tide that leads to a well-rounded manhood and to fortune. To hesitate is to be lost; to falter can only bring everlasting reproach to our race. God give you courage to quit yourselves like men and be strong."

With these words, Principal Frederic C. MacFarlane closed his hopeful message to his ‘Young Friends of the Class of 1943’ in the pages of the Dunbar High School yearbook. Named after the late 19th century poet and Dayton, Ohio native, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and originally located at 219 North Summit Street, Dunbar was initially intended to serve as a middle or junior high school. But, soon after its opening in 1931, the school began to admit high school students as well.

Dunbar High School followed in the tradition of America’s first all-black high school in Washington, D.C., with which it shares its name. The school also served as a center of employment for African American teachers, who often found themselves unemployed after completing teacher training due to the preference for hiring white teachers.