Meet the woman for whom Tacoma’s Wilson High School has been renamed: Dolores Silas
When Dolores Silas saw in the newspaper a few months ago that her name was being floated as an option for renaming Woodrow Wilson High School, she thought it was a mistake.
“I had not heard from anyone else,” Silas told The News Tribune from her Central Tacoma home on Thursday. “It was the newspaper that was my first inkling.”
Then on Feb. 11, the Tacoma Public Schools Board of Directors voted to change the name of Woodrow Wilson High School to Dr. Dolores Silas High School.
“I had no idea that it would go this far — that I would have my name on a building. And I cried,” Silas said.
Silas, now 94, has created a legacy in Tacoma since her arrival in the 1950s. She’s known for her work at Tacoma Public Schools, on Tacoma City Council, as a community advocate and for breaking glass ceilings for Black women in Tacoma. Silas served as tpresident of the Tacoma NAACP, elected in 1978, and was recognized by the city of Tacoma with a Lifetime Service Award in 2019.
She’s also known for her collection of hats — and never being without one.
“There’s a hat for every occasion,” Silas said while donning a pink hat for her interview with The News Tribune.
Wilson High School principal Bernadette Ray helped lead the charge for the name change after alumni sent letters to her last spring, pointing out the racist history of the man the school was named after. Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921, and known for leading the country through World War I. He was a segregationist who wrote a history textbook praising the Confederacy and was an advocate of the Ku Klux Klan.
During the name-change process, which included a committee made up of various alumni and stakeholders, Silas’ name surfaced as a finalist.
“I think Dr. Silas is an outstanding local woman with roots in Tacoma, community and in the Tacoma Public Schools,” Superintendent Carla Santorno said in January when making the recommendation for Dr. Dolores Silas High School.
Silas said she is still trying to comprehend that she will have a school named after her.
“I am so honored. And so blessed. That is just unbelievable,” she said.
Early years
Silas was born in Indiana in 1926.
From a young age, Silas said her mother would tell her, “Don’t say you can’t do it unless you’ve tried it.”
She carried that lesson into adulthood.
Silas attended boarding school in Kentucky. The school, Lincoln Institute, also known as Lincoln Ridge, was led by Whitney Young Sr., whose son was a prominent civil rights movement leader and director of the National Urban League.
After boarding school, Silas enrolled in Tuskegee University in Alabama. To help afford tuition, she got a job at a foundry — after some initial push back — and was the only woman working there.
“You don’t take no for an answer. If there’s a possibility, you try it,” she said.
Silas graduated from Tuskegee with a bachelor’s degree in 1949. She went on to earn her master’s degree in education from the University of Arizona in 1962 and a doctorate in leadership and human behavior from United States International University in San Diego in 1977, according to News Tribune archives.
When asked why she pursued education, Silas said that at the time there were limited options for Black women.
“Either you’re a nurse or a teacher,” Silas said. “Well, I can’t stand blood. So that gave me education.”
A Tacoma legacy
Silas came to Tacoma in the 1950s for a teaching job. She was the third Black teacher hired by Tacoma Public Schools and was on the staff at Lister Elementary, according to News Tribune archives.
After teaching, she became the first Black administrator with Tacoma Public Schools as a principal at DeLong Elementary.
In her first year at DeLong, Silas said she was welcoming students into a school when a kindergarten student put her arms around her and said, “I don’t care that you’re Black.”
The interaction told Silas that at some point, someone had pointed out the color of her skin to the child.
“And then I knew that I had a job to do with parents, students, teachers,” Silas said.
As a new principal, Silas said, many of the teachers were “buddies” and resistant to change. She implemented a dress code for teachers to be better role models for the students.
“When I came in, I made them uncomfortable,” Silas said. “I want them to teach. I don’t care about being buddies. I want them to teach.”
Silas saw her responsibility as principal to work with teachers to make them better teachers for kids. She read every report card for every student, looking for ways to help them improve in school.
Silas told some teachers to go out and visit families at their homes.
“I said, ‘You need to go into the home to see their background before you can teach that kid,’” Silas said. “They don’t come in all levels. They come in different levels.”
After nearly 30 years with Tacoma Public Schools, Silas felt it was time to leave.
“I think I was burnt out,” Silas said. “... I thought perhaps that a younger person, a newer person could come in and do a better job. You can’t cure the world by yourself. Others have ideas, too. And so, get out. Move over.”
Silas retired, but she wasn’t done with Tacoma.
In 1991, she was appointed to the City Council from a group of 19 applicants to fill the unexpired term of Tom Stenger, who resigned, according to News Tribune archives. She was elected to the seat in the fall, representing Central Tacoma and Hilltop.
One of the first things Silas said she did as a City Council member was challenge her colleagues to walk the streets of Hilltop and compare it to other areas of Tacoma to bring needed attention to the Hilltop area.
Silas served on the council through 1999. She was the first Black woman to serve as a City Council member.
‘A step forward’
Silas agrees with the decision to rename Wilson High School.
“We should not hide things from kids,” Silas said. “They should know, as they grow up, so that they will be positive in their attitude.”
Silas has had run-ins with racism in Tacoma. When she first arrived for her teaching position, she went to grab lunch at a restaurant called Chicken Basket on South 11th Street, only to be told that they wouldn’t serve her or other Black people.
Days later, she went to the county prosecuting attorney’s office.
“I said, ‘She’s breaking the law. Now go get her,’” Silas recalled.
According to News Tribune archives, the owner was charged with violations of the public accommodations act, and rather than follow the law, closed up shop and returned to Georgia.
Silas also remembered teaching at Lister Elementary in first grade and having a student moved from her class because the parents did not want a Black teacher.
Tacoma has changed a lot since the 1950s, Silas said, but things aren’t perfect.
“We’re not there yet, but we’re making progress,” she said.
For example, Silas added, renaming Wilson.
“I think that the school board was very sensitive to the need to change the school,” Silas said. “And I applaud them for doing it, knowing that the (entire) community would not agree with them. But this is the right thing to do.”
Silas said she didn’t invest her life in education to have a building named after her.
“I did not do it for recognition. I did it because it was the right thing to do, as far as my life is concerned. And as far as Tacoma is concerned, the progress that Tacoma has made, and the youth have made in this city — it’s just unbelievable. I love it,” Silas said.
When asked what she wants people to know about her, Silas said:
“That I try to be fair, in my thinking. That I hate no one. That we are more alike than different ... And we need to start, if we haven’t already, accepting every race, creed and color.”
