Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, originally the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth and later M Street High School, is founded in Washington, D.C. It is the first public high school for African Americans in the United States and the first public high school for any student in the District of Columbia. The school honors Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), a writer who lived in Washington at the turn of the 20th century.