Wilson C. Riles was principal of the Dunbar School during the 1940s and early 1950s.

 

A graduate of Arizona State Teachers College (Northern Arizona University), he was

also the president of the NAACP and a radio talk show host during his year in Flagstaff.

 

Riles was originally from Louisiana, and was recruited by Ms. Cleo Murdoch to work for the Dunbar School.

 

In 1952-53, Riles and Superintendent Sturgeon Cromer worked to desegregate Flagstaff city schools.

 

It was agreed that the segregated Dunbar School would close at the end of the Spring of 1954 school 

year, and that Dunbar students would join other neighborhood students at the South Beaver School, which

had been segregated for Mexican/Latino and Native American students since the 1920s.  

 

Riles moved to Northern California in the 1950s and was elected

State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of California in 1970.