THE BRASHEAR REUNION COMMITTEE—SAM CLANCY, MIKE THOMPSON, DAVID THOMPSON. STANDING IN FRONT: BETTY MORRIS, JODI THOMPSON, LAURA MITCHELL-DENDY, CYNTHIA GRIMMITT. (PHOTOS BY J.L. MARTELLO)
Racial tensions were high in early years
David Thompson remembers it like it was yesterday. He was on the school bus, heading to the new John A. Brashear High School in Beechview. He was a freshman in 1976, the same year the school opened. Before he could get into the school, he witnessed the White parents of some of the students, outside with signs, protesting that Black students were being bused from the Hill District “over the bridge” to Beechview for high school.
“They didn’t want us over there,” Thompson told the New Pittsburgh Courier.
Even though the historic Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling deemed segregated public schools to be illegal based on race, the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia school districts didn’t immediately put it into action. In February 1968, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission ruled that a desegregation plan was to be ordered, prompting Pittsburgh schools to finally act.
Eight years later, in 1976, the massive Brashear High School opened on Crane Avenue in the mostly-White section of Pittsburgh known as Beechview. Students came from South Hills school in Mt. Washington (primarily White students), Gladstone (Black and White students) in Hazelwood and Fifth Avenue (primarily Black students) in Uptown/Bluff to form the new student body at Brashear.
Many White parents weren’t having it. But there were Black parents also trying to understand why their children had to go “way across the bridge” to Beechview to go to high school, as well.
“The first year, there was a ton of racial tension on both sides,” Thompson recalled.
Thompson said he had to be a mediator of sorts in the hallways at Brashear as a student. “I was the one who would attempt to calm everyone’s nerves and bring everyone together,” he said.
Thompson was part of the first four-year graduating class at Brashear, the Class of 1980. Some of his classmates were Michelle Graves and Joel Hollis, who were featured in a 2010 Courier report detailing a Brashear Class Reunion in that year.
PART OF THE CLASS OF 1977—BETTY ANN MORRIS, DR. KIMBERLY SLATER-WOOD, AT THE BRASHEAR 50th ANNIVERSARY GALA. (PHOTO BY J.L. MARTELLO)
One of the more well-known Brashear graduates of the early days was Sam Clancy, the multi-sport superstar from the Hill District. He led Fifth Avenue High School to a championship, and then, just like that, the school closed. He spent his senior year of high school at Brashear, part of the first Brashear graduating class, 1977.
Not surprisingly, Thompson said it was sports that started to break the racial divide. Those Brashear teams, whether it was football, basketball, track, cross country or baseball…they were winning teams, Thompson recalled.
“It seemed like sports was the common thread to bring people together,” Thompson told the Courier.
Thompson, now the Chairman of the Brashear Alumni Committee, hosts reunion events for Brashear alumni from time to time. The latest iteration was in August, dubbed the John A. Brashear 50th Anniversary Gala. It was a weekend of events; the main event occurred on Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026, at the St. Nicolas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Oakland.
“It turned out great,” Thompson said. “People had a good time; they’re looking forward to the next one.”
When Brashear started, it had about 2,400 students. Today, the number hovers around 900. And as far as the racial makeup, today the school is 42 percent Black, 23 percent White, 17 percent Hispanic and 10 percent Asian, according to data provided to the website Public School Review.
Thompson has noticed that in recent years, the racial composition of the Brashear alumni reunions are leaning more African American as well. Thompson hopes that future Brashear alumni reunions can get closer to that 50/50-esque split that he remembers of Brashear when he was a student. All he can do is host the reunions, and then lean onto the words of Brashear’s first principal, Eugene Khorey, who died this year on Jan. 21 at age 99, and who would regularly attend the reunions — “He told me, ‘the people who want to come,'” Thompson recalled, “‘they’re going to come.'”
CARMELLA ROBINSON, JEANETTE WILLIAMS, DR. KIMBERLY SLATER-WOOD, PAMELA MCGHEE
THE NEW KING AND QUEEN OF THE REUNION ARE QUEEN LISA WATKINS AND KING GORDON PAROTT.
EVERYONE ON THE DANCE FLOOR, DURING THE BRASHEAR HIGH SCHOOL 50TH ANNIVERSARY GALA, AUG. 22, 2026. (PHOTOS BY J.L. MARTELLO)
MARVIN JONES, SYLVESTER WRIGHT, WILL THOMAS, CRAIG JONES