Dear LDAA Family,
Here are some things we can count on: Alumni helping descendants and the collective power of the Douglass High School Experience. Inevitably linked, these two constants should give you an unwavering pride in your connection with Douglass High School.
Your gifts help ensure generations of descendants the opportunity to continued education, thrive, and graduate with a commitment to “Being the Change,” applying their talents, passion, and spirit wherever it is needed. Between 1985 and 2020, LDAA awarded over $300,000 in scholarships to descendants of The Loudoun Training School and Douglass High School, in Leesburg, Virginia. Many have received their undergraduate and graduate degrees and are making a difference in their communities, careers, and all over the world.
Douglass High School was erected in 1941 after the Black residents of Loudoun County formed an association to build an accredited high school for children “of color.” The group raised money to purchase land and hired civil rights attorney Charles H. Houston to persuade the Loudoun County School Board to build the school. Prior to 1941, the Loudoun County Training School, also known as the Loudoun School, Loudoun High School, and Union Street Building, provided an unaccredited partial secondary education program in the 1930s. County residents from forty-four Black residential settlements, who desired a secondary education, were forced to travel to Prince William County’s Jennie Dean Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth or Washington, D.C. for high school before Douglass High School opened its doors. Douglass High School provided an accredited secondary education for Black students until the final phase of Loudoun County school desegregation in 1968.
Students from both the Loudoun Training School and Douglass High School joined to form the Loudoun Douglass Alumni Association (LDAA) in the 1980s to provide scholarships and participate in civic activities that highlight the history and accomplishments of the county’s Black residents.
The historical marker depicting the efforts of Loudoun’s Black residents to establish Douglass High School and its historical significance needs to be revised and replaced. The cost to replace the marker is approximately $2500. Please help us with sustaining those LDAA traditions that define the “Douglass Experience” as we prepare to replace the historic plate marker in front of Douglass High School in Leesburg, Virginia. We accept donations through GoFundMe, CashApp ($LDAA1985), or by sending a personal check to LDAA, P.O. Box 1638, Leesburg, VA 20177.
