This Fort Worth man pursued equality for Black educators, and promoted public transit
Dennis Dunkins, who dedicated his career to getting more Black students and educators into leadership positions in the Fort Worth school district and also was a staunch advocate for mass transit, died Tuesday after being hospitalized for COVID-19.
Dunkins, a Fort Worth native, was 80 years old.
News of Dunkins’ death shocked his relatives and large circle of friends, who remembered him not only as a soft-spoken advocate for education in the African-American community, but also for his healthy lifestyle. He and his wife of 57 years, Eva Marie Dunkins, were longtime vegetarians who walked at least two miles every day for decades, his son, Dennis Dunkins II, said.
Dunkins was a founder of the Texas Alliance of Black School Educators, which was formed in 1986 to promote opportunities for African-American students and to identify challenges faced by African-American teachers and school leaders.
While working at the Fort Worth district, Dunkins often organized college visits for groups of Black students, said Charlece Thomas James, a Fort Worth school district coordinator who has known Dunkins for many years. He never missed those trips until this year, she said, when the outings were canceled because of the pandemic.
“He was such a giant, just a true giant, although he never acted like he was a giant,” she said. “He had that kind of personality that you couldn’t say no to.”
Dunkins played an important role in the creation of Fort Worth’s magnet school program, said Gwendolyn Morrison, an education consultant and Tarrant County College board member who has known Dunkins since the early 1970s.
She said Dunkins also was instrumental in helping Black principals, teachers and other school administrators find their leadership roles in a newly-desegregated Fort Worth school system.
“He recruited me and other people to be a party to that work, and to accept that work as a part of our regular jobs and responsibility,” Morrison said.
Dunkins was one of the first African-American students to attend North Texas State University, which is now known as the University of North Texas in Denton. A 2006 oral history interview with Dunkins — in which he describes his time on campus majoring in industrial technology in the 1960s, his work with General Motors and later his business ownership — is on file at the school’s library.
He cherished his college years — although he faced many challenges in social settings where desegregation wasn’t yet accepted — and dedicated his life to persuading other African-American youths to embrace their educational opportunities, said Bob Ray Sanders, a Fort Worth historian and former Star-Telegram columnist.
“He had a powerful voice and a passionate voice, but he was one of those who didn’t have to scream,” Sanders remembered. “He could do things that needed to be done, while other people screamed at the school board.”
Jeff Davis worked with Dunkins for seven years at Trinity Metro, Fort Worth’s public transportation agency, where both men served on the board.
Davis said Dunkins was a tremendous asset to Trinity Metro in part because he was a frequent bus and train rider who knew the agency’s challenges at the ground level.
“He rode the bus and talked to people all the time about how we could improve the service,” Davis, who is Trinity Metro board chairman, said. “He was adamant about improving the East Side Transfer Station. Every time he mentioned the kinds of needs we had, he spoke from his heart.”
Dunkins’ family members learned to embrace his love for mass transit and passenger trains, his son, Dennis Dunkins II, said.
In recent years, Dunkins organized annual family trips to Chicago on the Amtrak Texas Eagle, which operates daily from Fort Worth.
“He would take our family to ride the Texas Eagle from Fort Worth to Chicago, just to see Chicago at Christmas time,” Dunkins II said. “He was a big fan of the train. He won me over with the train.”
Brief illness
Dunkins and his wife tested positive for the COVID virus a couple of week ago, his son said.
Eva Marie Dunkins, 79, did not become ill and to this day remains symptom-free. But her husband did experience symptoms and was hospitalized briefly last week.
After returning home, he experienced symptoms again, and was again hospitalized.
On Monday, the family got what they thought was good news from the hospital. Dunkins was breathing well on his own and no longer needed supplemental oxygen.
But then surprisingly on Tuesday, Dunkins experienced some type of emergency pulmonary incident in the hospital, and died, his son said.
In addition to his wife and son, Dunkins’ surviving family members include: daughters Denise Marie Dunkins and Shanequa Dunkins; brother Douglas Ray Dunkins; and grandchildren Camille, Dennis III and Nathaniel.
Funeral arrangements are pending at Golden Gate Funeral Home in Fort Worth.
This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 3:04 PM.
