Emma V. Brown

Emma V. Brown (c. 1843 – 1902) The city's slaves had been emancipated while she was away. Upon her return, she operated the School for Colored Girls for roughly a dozens students in her mother's home in Georgetown. The house, at 3044 P Street NW, still stands today.

In 1864, Washington became the first city in the South to use tax money to open a free school for black students. It opened in the Little Ebenezer United Methodist Church on Capitol Hill on March 1 with Brown as its teacher. The student body was racially segregated, but Brown, who was black or mixed-race, was assisted by a white woman, Frances W. Perkins. Perkins' salary was paid by the New England Freedman's Aid Society.