In 2017, the Onyx Alumni – a group of Black graduates of Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. – played the key role in the dedication of a portal leading to the football field, a gateway named for John Gabriel Smith, who in 1954 became that Catholic school’s first African American graduate.

That gateway was renamed as the “Dr. Gabe Smith 1954” portal after Gonzaga bestowed an honorary doctorate on him at its June 2021 commencement. A plaque at the portal explains that it “serves as a tribute to Gabe and an enduring symbol to young men – of all races and ethnic backgrounds – who follow in his pioneering footsteps on Eye Street.”

For African American graduates of Gonzaga who have gotten to know Smith, he offers a reminder of progress made, and progress still to come.

“He is a living example of positive progress,” said Devon Leary, a 2006 Gonzaga graduate who serves as the school’s director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Leary expressed appreciation for “the fact he’s so connected to our community. He comes back and can be seen walking around campus, talking to faculty members and students.”

A display in the school includes Smith’s senior photo, a purple shirt labeled “Gabe 54” and photos and the program from the 2017 portal dedication. But his visits to the school offer students a living glimpse of a man who grew up in segregated St. Mary’s County and was welcomed by white Gonzaga students as that school was being integrated in the early 1950s.

Leary said Smith’s story “brings to light the true history of our country and how much work we still have to do. It makes it a reality for them (the students). Kids can talk to him… It helps them internalize the racial strife that we live with every day as a country. His presence makes those things a reality and calls our boys to step us as Catholic leaders… It makes living out the mission of Jesus Christ, of being a man for others, a reality.”

The Gonzaga administrator and graduate said he admires Smith’s “clear vision.”

“He remembers the white kids at Gonzaga who hung out with him and would stand up for him in different situations when his race became an issue,” Leary said. “His outlook on life is that the good outweighs the bad. He doesn’t let the bad bog him down, and he takes the good and carries it on his shoulders and extends it to others… You learn from him resilience and gratefulness for what we all share.”

Byron Harper, an African American graduate of Gonzaga from the class of 1984 who now serves as its director of alumni relations, said Smith represents an enduring legacy for that school.

“He showed that Gonzaga is a place for everybody, African Americans included,” Harper said.

The display highlighting John Gabriel Smith’s legacy at Gonzaga also includes a panel about another figure from the school’s history named Gabriel – an enslaved youth by that name who worked at the Washington Seminary, Gonzaga’s original name, in the early years after the school was founded in 1821. A team of Gonzaga students in the summer of 2017 went to Georgetown University’s archives and researched their school’s ties to slavery. They learned about Gabriel, a youth between the ages of 8 and 12, who was listed as working in the school’s garden.

“The synergy of the finding of Gabriel and the recognition of Gabe is just uncanny,” Harper said. Commenting on that coincidence and how poignant it is, he added, “…To allow us to further lift Gabe’s name up is just like a double honor, because we’re lifting up Gabriel the slave. It’s kind of a two-fold (recognition) to lift up Dr. John Gabriel Smith and now there was a slave named Gabriel associated with the Washington Seminary.”

Leary said that recognizing the role that enslaved people played in Gonzaga’s earlier history is important. “We want to honor them, because their blood, sweat and tears is the foundation of what we all share today.”

Walter B. Hill Jr., a 1983 graduate of Gonzaga who now works for the Export-Import Bank of the United States, was among the school’s African American alumni who supported the effort to erect the portal honoring Smith.

“The motto of Gonzaga, which is ‘Men for Others,’ is exemplified by Gabe Smith,” said  Hill, who added, “He’s one of the most humble men I’ve ever come into contact with, and it’s a blessing that we were able to give Gabe his flowers while he can smell them.”

Harper said there is “no more fitting symbol” for Smith than the portal, a gateway, honoring Gonzaga’s first African American graduate. Since then, Gonzaga has had 1,217 African American graduates following in his path.

“We stand on his shoulders,” Harper said. “…Because of him, we made it through.”

Hill said it is also important that the portal is located near the Father McKenna Center, named for the late Jesuit Father Horace McKenna, who as pastor of St. Peter Claver Parish in Ridge in Southern Maryland helped Smith attend Gonzaga. Father McKenna later became known in Washington as a priest for the poor, helping to found SOME (So Others Might Eat), which provides a soup kitchen and a range of outreach for the homeless and poor in the nation’s capital. The Father McKenna Center is named in his honor and continues his work of feeding and serving the poor.

“It’s no mistake that it (the portal) is directly adjacent to the McKenna Center,” Hill said. “Not only will every student who comes to Gonzaga at some point cross through the Dr. Gabe Smith 1954 portal, but they’ll also know the McKenna Center and be able to make that connection as well.”

Hill agreed that the portal is a fitting symbol to the legacy that Smith represents.

“Gonzaga is a pathway that young boys follow to continue their maturation process to becoming young men,” he said.. “… It is important not just for the Black kids who come through the school, but for all the students who walk along Eye Street to know the history and the legacy that Gabe represents.”