I also can be the person to shatter a glass ceiling,’” said Davis, a Philadelphia native and Central graduate herself.
“It is my hope as the first that the students at Central, in the current class and in upcoming classes, will think, ‘Wow, President Davis was able to accomplish this. That the 15th portrait will be of a person of color, a woman, “is long overdue,” Davis said.
Its principals are known as “presidents,” and if you lined up a gallery of their portraits, there would be 14 white men. That their granddaughter is about to become the first Black and first female president of Central High School, the storied Philadelphia magnet, is both “surreal” and “historically significant” to Davis.Ĭentral, founded in 1836, is the second-oldest high school in the U.S. Both had to leave school to help support their families in southern Alabama. Her grandmother didn’t finish ninth grade. Katharine Davis’ grandfather didn’t make it past seventh grade.
