​​​​​​​Booker T. Washington HIGH SCHOOL alumni association of dallas, inc.

Ernest was a columnist with the Booker T. Informer, writing a column giving "advice to the love torn." Using a Ghost Name disguised with something like "Dear Earl" or "Dear Charlie").

In his junior year, he joined our championship track team to become a long-distance runner, which was the mile and half-mile runs at that time.

  Ernest was in the National Honor Society and a member of the Student Council. In his senior year, his class started a "Barons and Baroness Club." He was an officer in the National Defense Cadet Corp (NDCC) and the Drill Team. He also became an Instructor Colonel in his senior year.

Ernest was selected to participate in National Science Foundation's summer program at Prairie View, and that pretty much transformed his life from a soldier of war mentality to an agitator for peace.

Theodis "Ted" Shine, Jr.

Ted Shine (1931 - 2018), often called “The Dean of Black Texas Playwrights," attended Booker T. Washington High School --Dallas's first African American high school. He graduated in 1948. From there he attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., and studied under Owen Dodson, a leading Black poet and dramaturg. He and classmate Toni Morrison collaborated and performed under Dodson's tutelage, and there his first play, Sho Is Hot in the Cotton Patch, was staged in 1951.

To Visit Ernest McMillan's website.

Otis Frank Boykin

  • ​Otis Boykin’s noteworthy inventions include a wire precision resistor and a control unit for the artificial cardiac pacemaker​

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  • Patented 28 electronic devices - some came in great demand by the United States military for guided missles and IBM for computers

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  • In 1938, he graduated as the valedictorian from BTW High School in Dallas, Texas

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  • In 1941, he graduated form Fisk College in Nashville, Tennessee

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  • ​​In 1944, he moved on to work for the P.J. Nilsen Research Labs in Illinois.  Shortly thereafter, he started his own company, Boykin-Fruth Inc.


  • ​On June 16, 1959, he received a patent for a wire precision resistor that would later be used in radios and televisions

On March 9, 2022,  the nationwide acclaimed Booker T. Washington High School for the Visual and Performing Arts (formally Booker T. Washington High School) held a plaque dedication ceremony in recognition of Mr. Shine.

Ernest McMillian

Curtis Cokes

  • On August 24, 1966, won the boxing WBA/WBC world welterweight title


  • Mr. Cokes became Dallas’ first and only undisputed world champion


  • In 2003, Cokes was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame


  • Played baseball and basketball at Booker T. Washington High School  and was good enough to earn all-state honors in both

Ernie Banks ('Mr. Cub')

  • "The greatest baseball player Dallas ever has produced"

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  • In 1950, he Graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas, Texas

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  • Banks was spotted and recruited by a Negro League scout named Bill Blair

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  • Inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977

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  • In 2013, Banks was invited to Washington to receive the Medal of Freedom from a former Chicago resident, President Barack Obama

William "Bill" Blair, Jr.

  • Star athlete, journalist, businessman, political activist and civic leader


  • 1943 - Married high school sweetheart, Mozell Jordan, the first Miss Booker T. Washington High School Queen


  • 1946 - Became a pitcher for the Indianapolis Clowns, one of twelve baseball teams comprising the Negro League


  • 1949 - Started Southwest Sports News. By 1960, the newspaper had evolved into the Elite News, the oldest African-American publication in North Texas


  • A Negro League Baseball Museum inductee

Mozell Jordan

Our first Miss Booket T.

(1941 - 1942)

BTW High School - Notable Events and Alumnus: