Dr. Cunningham, a Waterloo Native, was Iowa’s First Black High School Principal

The Dr. Walter Cunningham School for Excellence is one of 11 public elementary schools in the Waterloo School District and it is named after a barrier-breaking educator.

Cunningham was the first Black person to become a high school principal in Iowa when he was named principal of Waterloo’s East High School in 1975. East, which for a long time held the distinction of being the Black school in town, was the same school the Waterloo native graduated from in 1959.

A US Army veteran who was stationed in Okinawa and other parts of southeast Asia, Cunningham got his first teaching job in 1966.  He taught math at what was then McKinstry Junior High School.

After two years full time at McKinstry, Cunningham rotated between buildings and positions in Waterloo until he became an administrative assistant at East in 1969. The next year he took a job as director of the educational opportunity program at the University of Northern Iowa, where he had earned three degrees over his lifetime including his doctorate of education.

Cunningham continued to work his way up in Waterloo Schools. He was an assistant principal at Central High School in 1971 before becoming principal of Logan Junior High School in 1973, a role he held until he made history at East.

He served as East’s principal for 13 years and later served as deputy superintendent of Waterloo Schools until leaving the post in 1989. Cunningham spent three decades working in education. The lifelong educator was credited with helping start a Black teacher training program at Wartburg College, where he also served on the board of regents.

Cunningham was also known to encourage Black students to take college preparatory courses and further their education. Additionally, he was credited with helping with racial tension in the district and opened doors for other Black administrators in Waterloo.

“He was a person who always cared a lot,” former Waterloo School Board member  told the Des Moines Register.

After a nearly 13-year battle with polymyositis—a rare muscle disease that causes them to swell, hurt, and degenerate—Cunnigham died in 2000. He was 58 at the time of his death and left behind a wife, four children, seven grandchildren, and countless former students.

Two years after his death, the Dr. Walter Cunningham School for Excellence was built in Waterloo.  The school named after Iowa’s first Black high school principal was erected on the site of the former Ulysses S. Grant Elementary School.

by Ty Rushing
02/14/22