This is the second part in a series of three articles detailing the difficulties inner-city programs in Texas face in pursuit of on-field success. Check out the first part here.
Before the two state championships, before the renovated school opened and before the Dock that services students in need and the community at large, South Oak Cliff High School was falling apart.
The alumni had been calling to replace the school building, first erected in 1949, since the 90s. But with every bond program the district took on, South Oak Cliff continued to receive minor enhancements. Occasionally, the stage would be painted, or the lockers would get a fresh coat.
By 2015, the air conditioners, the pipes and the electrical wires withered away as maintenance continued to be deferred. Classrooms were subject to the brutal Texas summer heat with no air conditioning to combat it. Needed construction on the roof lagged so far behind that it rained in the building if it rained outside. There were exposed wires students could touch. Students drank out of water fountain molds that hadn’t ever been replaced.
And a football team that had compiled an 18–8 record with multiple playoff wins in Jason Todd’s first two seasons at the helm was doing so despite its athletic facilities.
The grass football field was stationed next to a creek, which meant if it rained, all the water would flood onto the football field and the team would have to complete walkthrough practices on cement or in the basketball gym. The weight room was the same dungeon used under the school since the 70s, with weights older than the athletes were still stuck inside the floor.
In the first year Kyle Ward was the defensive coordinator, the coaches had to bring their trucks and physically move the weight room equipment to Nolan Estes Plaza as workers tried to patchwork areas in South Oak Cliff. Then they had to repeat that process the same summer and move the equipment five miles away to Kincaide Stadium.
And yet, when Dallas ISD’s Bond 2015 program was announced, South Oak Cliff was slated to receive $13 million out of $1.6 billion. The district had allotted 0.8 percent of the money for more enhancements. While Dallas Adamson opened a brand new school and Dallas Sunset added a new wing, South Oak Cliff would remain as it was: a shell of its former self.
With each chance for repair the school district missed, South Oak Cliff began to feel neglect at its worst.
“Because everyone was happy to go to state if SOC went to state,” Derrick Battie said. “Everybody wanted to be in the parade. But you didn’t care when they had to come to a building to do their STAAR test prep that their lights didn’t work, or that their air conditioning imploded and that water just fell flat on the table while they’re doing their test and they got to start over.”
Students began sharing videos of the decaying building on Facebook and Twitter, and it caught the eye of Dallas activist Dominique Alexander, the founder of Next Generation Action Network. Alexander met with senior leaders from the school to form a demonstration voicing disapproval of the 2015 bond program.
That culminated in a 250-person student walkout on Dec. 7, 2015. As news stations flocked
to the school, the cameras zeroed in on one man in his letterman jacket. He spoke for all the high schoolers gathered in the front lawn behind him, holding signs blasting the school’s deplorable conditions.
David Johnson, South Oak Cliff’s First-Team All-Area quarterback and the Metroplex’s top 5A passer as a senior with over 3,000 yards and 44 touchdowns, was pleading with the district to give more money to rebuild a high school and provide benefits to a future generation of students he would never reap.
Staff members knew the students were upset. They saw an increase in students videoing the building as it withered away. But the walkout was executed under their nose, entirely planned and acted upon by senior leaders in South Oak Cliff High School who knew they deserved better.
“A lot of the time, the unpopular thing at one time is going to be a great thing for another time,” Todd said. “It really transpired into something real powerful, seeing him lead along with the other kids. Those kids got out there and marched and protested and wouldn’t back down.”
The students had kickstarted the fight for a new South Oak Cliff independently but needed help finishing the job.
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Maxie Johnson hasn’t stopped fighting to bring money back to the Black and Brown community since over 3,000 people elected him in May 2019 to serve on the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees.
He helped oversee Roosevelt High School’s $64-million renovation, which opened in August 2021. The brand-new Pinkston High School opened in January 2022 at a $94.8 million price tag. On March 1, he did a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Albert C. Black Elementary School, which will open its doors in August 2024 and serve one of the toughest areas in his district.
But this journey to rebuild Dallas ISD schools and fight for racial equity began before he was elected. It started seven years ago when his son, David, led the student walkout at South Oak Cliff.
Johnson saw the deterioration of the building firsthand, serving as president of the PTA and the South Oak Cliff Parent Coalition. He grew up in the community, and David would be his third child to graduate from a school that hadn’t received a substantial upgrade since they became the first in the district to integrate in the 60s.
“That’s been the history of Dallas,” Johnson said. “The haves and the have-nots. The haves continue to get, and the have-nots don’t. What we did was we used our first amendment right, and we protested until someone heard us.”
In early February 2015, the district responded to the growing concerns about South Oak Cliff’s building that had culminated in the student walkout by raising the original $13 million allotment to $25 million.
But Johnson, his son and the community knew that wouldn’t be enough. The students hadn’t walked out so South Oak Cliff could receive more Band-Aids. They walked out so their school could be rebuilt. So they continued to fight over eight long months for more money.
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