Education Commons^™

Chicago's Education Innovators: Making History Interviews With Paul Adams Iii And Walter Massey, Timothy J. Gilfoyle

History: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The influence of educators Paul Adams and Walter Massey extends far beyond Chicago. Both men share Southern roots: they grew up in racially-segregated urban communities and migrated to Chicago in search of employment opportunity. For more than forty-five years, Adams has served as the director of guidance, principal, and president of Providence St. Mel’ School in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood. Adams’s avid fund raising saved the school from closing in the 1970s and attracted the interest of and personal visits by President Ronald Reagan. In the ensuing decades, Adams was instrumental in transforming the school into what one study …