From Warrington to Bancroft
Before Derrick ever walked the halls of Bancroft Elementary, he came from Warrington Elementary, a school that had been part of the Black Southside community for generations. Warrington stood near 38th Street, on third Avenue, right next to Bryant Junior High. It was close to the heart of the neighborhood—38th & 4th Avenue.
It was predominantly Black, because of how Minneapolis neighborhoods were shaped in the 1950s and 60s. Redlining, unwritten boundaries, and neighborhood patterns meant Black families clustered in certain areas, often near each other, often building tight-knit communities that felt more like extended families than streets and houses. Warrington was one of those places.
Warrington was a neighborhood school in every sense of the word. But by the mid-1960s, Minneapolis began closing several older schools around the city. Warrington—smaller and aging—was on that list. In 1967, the year it shut its doors, the entire community felt the loss.
For many parents, it was more than a school closing; it was a piece of the neighborhood being carved away. The students, including Derrick and his friends, Tony, Marcus, and others, were bussed to different schools in the area. Students in their part of the neighborhood were assigned to Bancroft Elementary, a larger more modern school, five blocks east of Chicago Avenue, on 38th & 14th Avenue, and at the time, a largely white school.
The physical distance wasn’t big—maybe a ten-minute bus ride—but socially, it felt like a different world. And yet… at least for the kids, something interesting happened. There were no obvious racial issues. No fights. No drama. No icy stares in the hallways. No teachers treating them differently, at least in ways they could recognize.
If parents in the community had concerns when Bancroft took in so many Black students all at once, none of that reached Derrick or his friends. They were third graders when they arrived, still young enough to blend in, still young enough to orbit around playground games, math worksheets, spelling tests, and lunchroom seating charts more than politics or fear.
To the former Warrington students, Bancroft was a bigger playground with newer classrooms, new teachers, and more kids to pick teams with at recess, and hallways that smelled faintly of chalk dust and floor polish
There were differences, of course: Some of the white kids had never gone to school with Black classmates before. Some acted nervous at first, unsure how to talk or play or joke. Some were overly curious—asking questions that made no sense, like if all Black kids knew each other. But none of it turned mean. It was more curiosity than discomfort. More awkwardness than hostility. More learning than fighting.
By the time Derrick entered fifth grade, Bancroft wasn’t a “white school that got Black students.” It was simply their school—mixed, lively, sometimes noisy, always busy, and full of familiar faces.
To Derrick, Bancroft wasn’t a political decision or a social experiment. It was just where life took him when Warrington closed. And despite everything happening in the world in—the anger, the marches, the headlines—inside those school walls, Derrick felt what every kid hopes to feel: Safe, welcomed.and unjudged. And part of something bigger than himself.