Charles Lincoln Harper
Ed Dwight
Date Unknown
Bronze and granite base
Charles L. Harper was the first principal of Booker T. Washington High School, which opened in 1924 as the city’s first post-6th grade public education institution for African-Americans. Harper-Archer Middle School and Charles L. Harper Memorial Park carry his name. Harper graduated from Morris Brown College and worked as principal of the Morris Brown College high school program before becoming principal of Washington.The strong leadership of Professor Harper and the faculty had a tremendous influence on the students. Harper was an education and civil rights leader known throughout the state for lobbying for better pay for African-American teachers and more state aid for black graduate students. When Harper retired in 1942, Washington High was home to 4,200 students and the largest African-American high school in the United States.
Born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas, Ed Dwight joined the U.S. Air Force in 1953. Dwight served as a military fighter pilot and earned a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Arizona State University. Dwight’s next endeavor was as an Experimental Test Pilot, but he left the military 1966 to enter private life. In 1970, Dwight founded Dwight Development Associates, Inc., a real estate land development and construction company in Colorado.With little formal art training, Dwight’s first serious work was a commissioned sculpture of Colorado’s first Black Lt. Governor, George Brown in 1974. Dwight then went on to complete a commissioned series of 50 bronze statues of African American pioneers, farmers and soldiers, entitled “Black Frontier in the American West,” and then another series depicting the evolution of Jazz music from its African roots to the contemporary Jazz era. Currently, Dwight continues to create memorials, monuments and public art installations. To date he has completed over 120 such projects.
Ashby Garden Park
Ashby Cir. NW & Mayson Turner Rd. NW
Atlanta, GA 30314