Dennis Dunkins: Advocate for Education and Public Transit in Fort Worth (1940–2020)

Dennis Leon Dunkins, director of magnet programs in the Fort Worth Independent School District and public transit advocate, son of Ennis Dunkins and Louise (Johnson) Dunkins, was born in Fort Worth on September 18, 1940. His father was a minister and World War II veteran, while his mother worked as a barber college instructor. Dunkins had four siblings, two of whom died at early ages. He attended the James E. Guinn School in Fort Worth’s Southside before graduating from Paul Laurence Dunbar Junior-Senior High School in 1958. That same year Dunkins enrolled at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas). He was one of the first Black students to attend the university. During the summers he worked for the Texas and Pacific Railway Company and later the Santa Fe Railway to help pay for college. On February 4, 1963, Dunkins married Eva Marie Goudeau in Denton. The couple had three children, Denise Marie, Shanequa, and Dennis Dunkins II. Later that year Dunkins graduated with a degree in industrial technologies and began teaching math and English to junior high students at Dunbar. In 1996 he earned his master’s degree in sociology from Texas Woman’s University. He also received a certificate in human resource management from Tarrant County College.

While teaching at Dunbar, Dunkins accepted a position at the General Motors plant in Arlington. In 1964 he resigned from teaching after earning a promotion to line inspector. According to Dunkins, he was the first African American to hold this position at the plant. Soon after, he was promoted again to a clerk in the engineering office. In 1970 the plant awarded Dunkins its “Award for Excellence.” The honor recognized his work with the National Association of Businessmen, which provided technical assistance to Black businessmen. In 1974 Dunkins left General Motors to operate his own enterprise, Fairhaven Office Supply, which sold workplace equipment and furniture until its closure in 1983.

Dunkins is best-known for his efforts to advance opportunities for Black students and teachers within the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD). In 1976 and 1977 he served as spokesman for the Dunbar Revitalization Committee, which fought to fully integrate the school and increase enrollment by expanding Dunbar’s boundaries to include White students and to improve the quality of teachers and programs at the school. In 1979 Dunkins helped establish and was elected president of the Fort Worth chapter of People United to Save Humanity (PUSH). Through the organization, he hoped to revitalize the education of the city’s youth and worked to establish such projects as pre-professional clubs and high school tutoring programs.

In 1980 Dunkins was appointed director of the FWISD’s magnet program, which sought, among other goals, to attract White students to formerly all-Black schools. For the program’s first semester, Dunkins oversaw finance and computer engineering programs established at the Dunbar and Polytechnic high schools. By 1986 the program had expanded to include thirteen schools, and in 1989 his program won a $1.042 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to bolster its efforts. In the face of criticism that such programs drained resources from traditional schools, Dunkins staunchly defended the magnet school model. At Fort Worth’s 1991 education summit, he argued that magnet programs enhanced the entirety of schools in which they were located.

In 1990 Dunkins served as conference coordinator for the National Committee for School Desegregation’s conference in Fort Worth. In 1993 he was elected to the board of directors for Magnet Schools of Texas. The following year he was elected the organization’s president. In 1999 Dunkins began working as FWISD’s ombudsman for matters pertaining to discrimination and equal opportunity employment. He held trainings for school faculty on preventing sexual harassment, racial prejudice, and religious discrimination in the workplace. He retired from this position in 2009. Dunkins ran for a seat on the school board in east Fort Worth’s District 3 in 2010 and 2015. He was defeated in both races by longtime incumbent Christene Moss.

In 1986 Dunkins and twelve other Black educators founded the Texas Alliance of Black School Educators. The organization, for which Dunkins served as president from 2008 to 2010, sought to promote opportunities for Black students; to support Black educators; and to increase the number of African American principals, administrators, and teachers in state schools. Through the National Alliance of Black School Educators, Dunkins directed trips for Black high schoolers to learn about the civil rights movement and tour historically Black colleges and universities. These excursions were first led by Dunkins in 1987, and by 1999 he was leading three trips annually. He was also the Fort Worth coordinator for the United Negro College Fund.

Dunkins was also an advocate for mass public transit. In 1997 he joined the Tarrant Association of Railroad Passengers as an officer. The organization lobbied federal and state lawmakers to preserve Amtrak’s Texas Eagle rail service and expand and improve Amtrak service throughout the state. In 2013 Dunkins was appointed to the board of directors of the Fort Worth Transportation Authority (later Trinity Metro) to represent City Council District Five. He was part of an all-new board appointed by the Fort Worth City Council to pursue the completion of the commuter rail line TEXRail, which, upon its opening in 2019, connected Fort Worth and surrounding suburbs with the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Those who served with him respected Dunkins’s passion for the transit system, of which he was a regular rider who “knew the agency’s challenges at the ground level.” Serving on the board from 2013 to 2020, Dunkins held positions on the Trinity Railway Express Advisory Committee; the Scholarship Committee; the Planning, Operations, and Marketing Committee; and the Rail Working Group. He also chaired the Commuter Rail Committee and the ACCESS Committee. During his tenure Dunkins was instrumental in the development of Bus Route 28 along Mansfield Highway.

An oral history interview with Dunkins, conducted in 2006, is held at the University of North Texas. In 2014 he was honored with a Marion J. Brooks Living Legends Award. On December 29, 2020, Dennis Dunkins died due to pulmonary complications from COVID-19. He was eighty years old. His funeral service was held at Grace Temple Seventh-Day Adventist Church, where he had been an active member. In 2021 the Trinity Metro’s bus transfer center in east Fort Worth was renamed the Dr. Dennis Dunkins Transfer Center to honor his contributions to public transit in the city. The following year Rocketship Public Schools, a tuition-free charter school, opened its first Texas location as Dennis Dunkins Elementary in Fort Worth’s Stop Six neighborhood.