{"id":158,"date":"2018-03-12T01:44:44","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T01:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/?page_id=158"},"modified":"2018-12-06T18:19:01","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T18:19:01","slug":"cardozo-high-school","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/education\/cardozo-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardozo High School"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image of a frieze at Cardozo High School from takomabiblet on Flickr (public domain)<\/em><\/p>\n

Practically everyone at Cardozo knew them — two pregnant girls who had dropped out of school to pool their church mice resources in an effort to make the best head start for themselves and their babies.(“The Night Rhonda Ferguson Was Killed<\/em>,”\u00a0Lost in the City<\/em>, 41)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe castle on the hill,\u201d as Cardozo High School is called, is known as the first business school for African American students (DC People<\/a>). It admitted its first Black students the night after school segregation ended in D.C., which was before\u00a0Brown v. Board of Education<\/em>\u00a0(“Cardozo”<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In Lost in the <\/em>City, Cardozo, now Cardozo Education Campus, is always mentioned in the context of leaving, from Pearl and Joyce dropping out because of children in \u201cThe Night Rhonda Ferguson Was Killed\u201d to Caesar giving up on school and turning to crime in \u201cYoung Lions.\u201d In \u201cThe Night Rhonda Ferguson Was Killed,\u201d a group of girls (Cassandra, Melanie, and Anita) are shown skipping class, a regular activity for them. The story\u2019s title character, Rhonda, is listed by Black and white newspapers as a rising musical prodigy. She seems the most career-focused and driven towards completing her education.<\/p>\n

For the girls in\u00a0The Night Rhonda Ferguson Was Killed<\/em>, home is anywhere but their homes. While they do stay in good contact with their mothers and receive allowance and food from them, they enjoy their time outside of the house. Cassandra feels more comfortable driving around the city than taking a cab. When Gladys rants about her family troubles, Melanie and Cassandra immediately suggest heading to a stranger\u2019s party as a cure.\u00a0 Near the end of the story, Cassandra points out that they all have a place to stay at Rhonda\u2019s, where they discover that she has been shot. School serves as the context these characters meet, become friends and head out together into the city. Rhonda\u2019s death removes their most stable meeting place outside of school.<\/p>\n

For Caesar, home becomes Sherman\u2019s apartment, the after school hangout for him and Angelo. After months of staying later and later there, Caesar finally causes a rift between him and his father. He\u2019s thrown out on the street because of his displacement from home. School isn\u2019t the direct cause of his father disowning him, but it is the background that he comes from to Sherman\u2019s place. Reading these stories together, we can see Jones constructing Cardozo as home-like in that it provides its students a common reference point and known space, but the action of the stories reveals the ways in which instability arises from the lack of other kinds of homes beyond the school day.<\/p>\n

References<\/h3>\n

\u201cDC People & Places: Black History Spotlight \u2013 Cardozo Education Campus\u201d,\u00a0Department of General Services.<\/em>\u00a0Accessed March 15, 2018. https:\/\/dgs.dc.gov\/page\/dc-people-places-black-history-spotlight-cardozo-education-campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cCardozo Senior High School\u201d ,\u00a0DC Historic Sites.<\/em>\u00a0Accessed March 15, 2018,\u00a0http:\/\/historicsites.dcpreservation.org\/items\/show\/77.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image of a frieze at Cardozo High School from takomabiblet on Flickr (public domain) Practically everyone at Cardozo knew them — two pregnant girls who had dropped out of school to pool their church mice… <\/p>\n

Continue Reading Cardozo High School<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":417,"parent":50,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-158","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":771,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/158\/revisions\/771"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu\/lightingthepage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}