The Story of Calvin Coolidge High School of Washington D.C. 1940-1970
by
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Four months after CCHS opened, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It was Sunday December 7, 1941, at 12:55 p.m. eastern time. The Washington D.C. Redskins were playing the Philadelphia Eagles at Griffith Stadium in the ballpark between Georgia Avenue and Fifth Street Northwest. It was cold outside, but not like the usual “dead of winter” in D.C. The temperature hovered around 45 degrees. At the height of the game, the public address announcer commanded all army generals and navy admirals to report to their duty stations. He didn’t say why, but they all got up and left. Portable radios and cell phones were not available in the 1940s, so people in the stadium were among the last U.S. citizens to learn about the attack. The Redskins won the game 20 to 14 and ended the season with six wins, five losses and placed third in the National Football League (NFL). The stadium was also home to public meetings, church revivals and school events. The CCHS Cadets participated in The Annual Reserve Officers’ Training CORP (ROTC) drill competitions at the stadium every year. During an interview with Sidney Kramer and Alfred Blackburn, both from the class of 1944 recalled hearing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declare war on Japan over the CCHS broadcast system the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. News about the war covered the whole front page of the Washington Post Newspaper the next morning. Apparently, there was a shortage of metal in the U.S. Residents in D.C., Maryland and Virginia were asked to bring old car bumpers, bicycles, chicken wire, farm equipment, rusted cans, broken tools, wrought iron fences, church bells, and old streetcar tracks to processing centers for melting, to convert into steel for weapons. One alum who watched the 2019 movie called Midway, about the attack on Pearl Harbor, said it was one of the most heart wrenching movies she’d ever seen. “So many young soldiers were ripped apart by bombs and explosives or drowned in the harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. An elderly man got up and left the theater and never came back. It must have been too much for him to take in.”
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About the Book
In this book, we revisit the teachers, students and their families who helped shape the landscape of Calvin Coolidge High School in Washington D.C., from 1941 through 1970. It was and still is a school grounded in history and chronicles the ups and downs of living in the nation’s capital. The story unfurls over decades of war and peace, civil rights, voting rights, the end of segregation, and the assassinations of public figures, including a president. After the school was renovated in 1991, Edward Waters (class of 1943) and William Glew (class of 1945), took us on a virtual tour of Coolidge that ended in a garden behind the school, where a plaque is mounted on the Greenhouse building in memory of ten Coolidge boys who died during World War 11.