Lincoln High School is public high school located in Dallas, Texas which enrolls students in grades 9-12 and is a part of the Dallas Independent School District. Lincoln's magnet school offers Radio/Television/Film, Print Journalism, and Humanities. Lincoln has a variety of activities including Academic Decathlon, Debate, One Act Play, The Wall Of Sound Marching Band, and a variety of sports. The school has won national and state championships in boys' basketball. For the 2018-2020 biennium, Lincoln is classified by the University Interscholastic League as a 4A Division school, competing in District 4A-5 in football, and District 4A-12 in all other sports. In 2018, the school was rated "Met Standard" by the Texas Education Agency, with a 2-Star Distinction for Academic Achievements in Mathematics and Post Secondary Readiness.
History
In 1937, the Dallas school board appointed a building committee to find land for a new high school for African Americans. The committee chose eleven acres southeast of downtown Dallas, a couple miles north of the confluence of the Trinity River and White Rock Creek. Dallas architect Walter C. Sharp, responsible for several schools in Arlington, Dallas and Tyler, designed Lincoln High School, and Dolph-Bateson Construction Company served as contractor. The main building was designed in the new International Style that was just becoming popular at the time of its construction. The vertical massing and tower with glass bricks at the entrance made the building a landmark in the neighborhood. Lincoln High School opened its doors for the first time in January 1939 with 1,255 students and 31 teachers. It was one of the largest campuses in the city, with twenty classrooms, chemistry and physics laboratories, auditorium, cafeteria, and library in the main building. A federal Public Works Administration grant paid for nearly half of the construction cost. The only previous school for blacks, Booker T. Washington, suffered from extreme overcrowding, so many of the first Lincoln students came from Washington. Tueria Dell Marshall served as the first principal at the new school, from 1939 to 1955. Marshall is credited with bringing his students quality academic training. He is buried in the historic L. Butler Nelson Cemetery adjacent to his beloved school. In 1980 a new Lincoln High School was built in front of the original building. The original building is a Dallas Landmark, and a Texas state historical marker was placed in front of the original school building in 2006. The area of south Dallas around Lincoln has undergone significant gentrification over the last twenty years, and rumors of Lincoln closing have surfaced several times since the 1990s.
Academic performance
In 2011 1.1% of the students, including 3.1% of the Hispanic students and none of the black students, received a "criterion" or passing grade, as defined by the State of Texas, in SAT and/or ACT. Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer wrote that the school performed poorly and did not deserve the "high esteem" it received in South Dallas.
Feeder patterns
As of 2018, Joseph J. Rhoads Learning Center and Charles Rice Elementary School feed into then into Lincoln. Because Dade MS is the only middle school in south Dallas, it feeds both Lincoln and James Madison high schools. The students that come to Dade from Paul L. Dunbar Elementary School, Martin Luther King, Jr. Learning Center, and Oran M. Roberts Elementary School attend high school at Madison.
Athletics
The Lincoln Tigers compete in the following sports:
