Building an Educational Future: Delaware State College and its relationship with Delaware’s Comprehensive High Schools in the 1950s

Presenter: Dr. Donald Blakey

In 1953, Dr. Jerome H. Holland was hired as the new President of Delaware State College. Dr. Holland had three sources of student recruitment – out of state, Wilmington’s Howard High School and Delaware State College’s High School. Coming to the rescue of the struggling college were many of the graduates of the newly formed county comprehensive high schools for African Americans and American Indians. These schools were Wm. C. Jason (Sussex), Wm. H. Henry (Kent) and Lewis L. Redding (New Castle). The graduates of these schools provided a continuous and highly important flow of student traffic to sustain the important efforts set in motion for Delaware State College by Dr. Holland. The intent of this program is to interact with former students of the schools in order to explore and capture valued experience gained within their home institutions and Delaware State College. These recorded memories will provide a permanent record to be available to current and future scholars.