Dogan High School
Fairfield, Freestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The first public school for African Americans in Fairfield was established in 1926. Located on what was known as “The Flat” on a small one-acre plot adjacent to the First Baptist Church, the school was named Fairfield Colored School. Over time, enrollment increased, requiring additional classrooms. The sanctuary of the First Baptist Church was used as a classroom for a time. In 1934, community members, including Billie Lorenzo McIlveen, Willie Solomon and Bill Nolan, successfully petitioned the school board to relocate the school to this site, retaining the same faculty and nine-grade system. Shortly after, in keeping with Texas college requirements, Fairfield began to offer courses to meet entrance criteria that led to the establishment of the Colored High School. Also at this time, Principal Mae V. Donahue suggested changing the name of the school to Dogan High School, in honor of Wiley College President, Dr. Matthew Dogan, Sr. Dogan’s Wildcat Athletic Program consisted of baseball, track and basketball for boys, and softball, track and basketball for girls. The Dogan Wildcat boys’ team was runner-up in the state basketball tournament in 1953, 1957, 1959 and 1963. Mr. Randolph Titus, Principal of Dogan High School from 1936-1968, instilled pride in education in his students despite social and educational obstacles. Mr. Titus’ success may be measured by the success of his students. Dogan alumni went on to be notable educators, dentists, doctors, lawyers, ministers, veterans, public officials and more. Academic programs at Dogan High School proved among the best in the area and enrollment increased. Dogan fully integrated in 1968. The campus continues to serve as a location for many organizations and community events focusing on education and social service. (2016)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Fairfield's first public school for Black children opened in 1926 on a one-acre plot beside the First Baptist Church, whose sanctuary doubled as a classroom as enrollment grew. In 1934 the community petitioned to move the school to this site and soon added the high-school courses that let it become a full institution, renamed Dogan High School for Wiley College president Dr. Matthew Dogan, Sr. Under principals like Randolph Titus, who led the school from 1936 to 1968, Dogan built a proud record — its Wildcat basketball teams reached the state finals four times — and sent alumni into medicine, law, ministry, and education before integrating in 1968.
Why it matters
Dogan High School shows how a segregated Black community built excellence against the odds, sustaining ambition and achievement through the Jim Crow era until integration made its separate campus part of a shared school.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Dogan High School was born in 1926, deep in the era of legal segregation, when Texas — like the rest of the Jim Crow South — ran separate and deliberately unequal schools for Black and white children. Fairfield's first public school for African American students opened that year on a single acre in a neighborhood known as "The Flat," next door to the First Baptist Church. That location is telling: in the segregated South, the Black church and the Black school were almost always neighbors, and often the same building did double duty.
That is exactly what happened here. As enrollment grew and the little schoolhouse ran out of room, the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church itself was pressed into service as a classroom. It is a vivid picture of how these communities made do — pooling the few institutions they were allowed, so that their children could learn even when the resources allotted to them fell far short of what white schools received.
By the 1930s the community was pushing for something better, and in 1934 they succeeded in moving the school to this site. The timing is important: this was the heart of the Great Depression, when money for anything was scarce, and a Black community winning a new school campus from its school board took real organization and persistence.
People & events
The move in 1934 did not happen on its own. Community members — among them Billie Lorenzo McIlveen, Willie Solomon, and Bill Nolan — petitioned the school board and won, keeping the same faculty and the nine-grade system as the school relocated. Soon after, to meet Texas college-entrance requirements, Fairfield began adding the coursework that turned a grade school into a true high school. Education was not just being offered here; it was being fought for and built up, grade by grade.
It was Principal Mae V. Donahue who proposed the name the school still carries, honoring Dr. Matthew Dogan, Sr., president of Wiley College — a distinguished Black college in Texas. Naming a small-town school for a college president was an act of aspiration, a way of telling children that the path from this campus led toward higher learning and leadership.
The figure who most defined the school, though, was Randolph Titus, principal from 1936 to 1968 — more than three decades at the helm. Through the hardest years of segregation he instilled pride and ambition in his students, and his success is best measured in theirs: Dogan alumni went on to become educators, doctors, dentists, lawyers, ministers, public officials, and veterans. The school's Wildcat teams carried that pride onto the court, with the boys' basketball squad finishing state runner-up four times — in 1953, 1957, 1959, and 1963 — a powerhouse record for a small school.
Its place in the American story
Dogan High School tells one of the essential American stories of the twentieth century: how Black communities under segregation built excellence with the little they were given. Denied equal funding and forced into separate schools, they answered not with resignation but with institutions of real ambition and achievement — schools that sent their graduates into every profession despite every obstacle placed in their way.
The school's arc also traces the nation's slow, contested movement toward equality. Founded in the depths of Jim Crow, sustained through the decades when "separate but equal" was the law of the land, Dogan fully integrated in 1968 — years after the Supreme Court had declared school segregation unconstitutional, a reminder that desegregation on the ground came gradually and unevenly across the South. When it came, it closed a chapter that this community had written with remarkable dignity.
Stories like Dogan's complicate and enrich the national memory of segregation. Alongside the injustice, they preserve the achievement — the teachers, coaches, and principals who refused to let unequal conditions produce unequal expectations, and the graduates who proved them right. It is history that belongs not just to Fairfield but to the whole country's understanding of how far it has come.
If you visit
Come thinking about scale. Picture that original one-acre plot on "The Flat," beside the First Baptist Church whose sanctuary once held overflowing classes, and you begin to feel how modest the beginnings were — and how much rose from them. The campus at this site is where that determined community finally planted its school for good in 1934.
The grounds still serve as a gathering place for organizations and community events centered on education and social service, so this is not a frozen monument but a living continuation of what Dogan always was: a hub for a community's aspirations. If a program or event happens to be underway when you pass through, you are seeing the school's original purpose carrying on.
Stand for a moment and consider the people the marker names — the parents who petitioned, the principals who believed, the athletes who filled trophy cases, the graduates who became doctors and lawyers and teachers. This is a good stop on any journey tracing African American history through small-town Texas, a place where the achievement of a community that refused to be held back is honored right where it happened.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Matthew Dogan, Sr.
- · Randolph Titus
- · Mae V. Donahue
Themes & tags
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