Wooden marionette in ballerina tutu

William N. Buckner

This eight-string marionette was made by William N. Buckner, Jr. (1888-1984), a 1907 graduate of M Street High School, the renowned public school for African Americans in Washington, DC’s segregated system later renamed for poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dressed as a dancer, the marionette serves as an example of M Street’s innovative instruction, which produced prominent leaders in the District and beyond, from educator and activist Nannie Helen Burroughs to civil rights attorney Charles Hamilton Houston. Integrated into the school’s academic and vocational offerings was an arts curriculum developed by visionary art educator Thomas W. Hunster (1851-1929) and supported by Principal Anna J. Cooper (1858-1964). Students learned not only to observe and draw their surroundings—from classrooms supplied with live plants and animals to buildings in the nation’s capital, but also to plan and then realize projects, such as laying a wooden floor or producing a puppet show.