Dunn would be a fine name for new school
There were three schools in Windsor in 1883, one for white students, one for Catholic students and one for “coloured” students.
Jane Ann Dunn went to the coloured school, as it was known, on Assumption Street between Mcdougall and Mercer streets. It was, as a recent report put it, “notably unequal.”
So Jane’s father, James Dunn, decided to enrol her in the newer, bigger, grander white school — Central School — where Windsor’s city hall is now. He took her to Central on the first day of classes in September 1883. The principal wouldn’t accept her.
So Dunn told his daughter to stay there until she was expelled. She did. She was six years old.
The next day, he petitioned the Windsor Board of Education. The board rejected his petition. He sued the board. The court dismissed his suit.
So he campaigned for the position of school board trustee and won, becoming the first black school board trustee in Windsor. He went on to serve four terms. Schools in Windsor were desegregated in 1888, thanks in part to Dunn.
That’s the most compelling reason why the current board should name the new French immersion school on Mercer Street after Dunn.
“He was somebody who represented equal education, equity, and standing up for what you believe is right,” said Kristen Siapas, chairperson of the parent council at Giles Campus French Immersion Public School, which will move to the Mercer Street site, and a member of the board’s naming committee.
“These are all things we want to teach our students.”
But there’s a lot more to Dunn’s story. The son of former slaves, he came from almost nothing and rose to become a wealthy and prominent member of the community. He was also the first black municipal councillor.
Born in 1848 in St. Thomas, Dunn moved to Windsor with his family in the 1860s. He became a clerk at Whiting, Scarf & Co. varnish factory. He ended up buying the company and renaming it J.L. Dunn Paint and Varnish Co. It later became the Standard Paint and Varnish Co. He invented a new way to varnish and supplied paint to companies like farm equipment manufacturer Massey Harris.
By the time Dunn’s brother, who was a partner, assumed management of the company, it employed 30 people. While there were other black business owners at the time, few employed that many people.
Naming the company after himself “really signalled to everybody that a person of African-canadian descent had done this,” said Irene Moore Davis, Dunn’s great-great-great niece. “It was a wonderful, positive infusion of a success story, something people could look to with great pride.”
When his terms as a school board trustee ended, Dunn ran for Windsor’s town council in 1887 and won that election, too. He was re-elected in 1888. He also became a justice of the peace. And he was a founding member of the Coloured Masons of Windsor.
Dunn was a snappy dresser and a gregarious personality who was once thrown out of the British Methodist Episcopal Church for dancing.
“We used to look at pictures of him in his stylish outfits and hats, and we’d think, what an interesting guy,” Davis said. “He loved to be known about town.”
Local media on both sides of the river covered his lawsuit against the school board, his election to the school board and then council, even the construction of his new house on Windsor Avenue.
He was building “the most fabulous house he could” when he died in 1889 at the age of 41 from heart disease, said Davis. She’s never seen a photograph of the house, but it was described in the local media as grand.
The media covered his funeral, of course.
“He was considered a shrewd, pushing businessman, and his success was attributable to his indomitable energy,” his obituary stated.
His funeral procession, which began at his home on Windsor
Avenue, was “one of the largest ever seen in Windsor,” according to the Amherstburg Echo. The procession was nearly threequarters of a mile in length, with more than 100 carriages.
“He accomplished so much in so little time,” said Davis.
Current school trustees will consider three other, generic names for the new school on Tuesday — Ambassador Public School, Ensemble Public School and Heritage Public School. There are lots of schools named Heritage Public School.
But there would be only one James L. Dunn Public School. And it would mean something.
We were the terminus of the Underground Railroad. But we don’t even have a school named after an African-canadian, not since the board demolished H. D. Taylor Public School, named after the first African-canadian doctor in Windsor, and replaced it with West Gate Public School.
Dunn was another role model. Like Taylor, he’s featured in the board curriculum called African-canadian Roads to Freedom, written to teach students about the “many significant contributions” of African-canadians.
And he’s from the ’hood. Windsor Avenue and Mercer Street were once the heart of the African-canadian community here.
I can’t think of a better teachable moment during Black History Month.