Black Schools Shouldn't
Honor Slave
Advocates
By
George E. Curry
10-24-3
- I was checking e-mails sent to me at my website
recently when one from Hampton, Va. jolted me. "My name is Dr.
Erenestine Harrison and I write to you with one question: Would Jews
send their children to Adolph Hitler Elementary School?" The answer was
a no-brainer, I thought. And having gotten my rapt attention, she went
directly to the point.
-
- "I write to inform you of my efforts to rename 2
schools in Hampton, Virginia. Robert E. Lee (the general who led the
confederate army) Elementary School has a 95% black student population.
Jefferson Davis (the president of the southern confederacy which fought
to preserve slavery) Elementary School has a 67% black student
population. Our black leaders have been muffled here and have not spoken
out about this, but I know that Jewish people would not stand for
it."
-
- Harrison, an educator, has a valid point. What's in a
name? Plenty. When I was growing up in Alabama, almost every city had a
Black school named after Booker T. Washington. And for good reason. At
least, good reason for the all-White boards of education. Despite his
contributions to education and establishing Tuskegee University, let's
not forget that Washington was an accommodationist. In fact, he defended
racial segregation in his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech. On Sept.
18, 1895, Washington said, "In all things that are purely social we can
be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand is in all things
essential to mutual progress."
-
- As a W. E. B. DuBois admirer since my teenage years, I
always wondered why, in all of my travels throughout my native Alabama
during the 1960s, I never came across a W.E. B. DuBois high school or
elementary school. That was by design. DuBois was uncompromising on the
issue of racism and White school boards in the South were not about to
name a school after him. Even now, not many Black-controlled ones
outside of his native Massachusetts have honored DuBois in this
manner.
-
- In the name of integration, my old high school - Druid
High - is now called Central High School-West in Tuscaloosa, Ala. It's
not called that by graduates because to us, it was and always will be
Druid. Although Druids were part of an order of priests in ancient Gaul
and Britain who, according to legend, were exceptional prophets and
sorcerers, that's not how my school got its name. Tuscaloosa, located 57
miles southwest of Birmingham, was called "the Druid City," we were
told, because of its famous oak trees.
-
- However it got the name, we were proud to say we
attended D-r-u-i-d High School. It was the best built high school in the
state for Blacks (identical to the cross-town Tuscaloosa High, which was
for Whites), and Black students visiting would marvel at our block-long,
brick school that featured two libraries.
-
- Would I feel the same way if my school had been named
after a confederate general? Definitely not, although the school and its
teachers would have been the same. I can't imagine sticking my chest out
to boast that I had attended Robert E. Lee High School. (Believe me,
there were plenty of them around for White students). And that was the
writer's point. She wasn't just whistling Dixie.
-
- "Young children identify with their school," Harrison
wrote. "How must these children feel when they realize that the school
that they go to is honoring a man who wanted to keep them in slavery,
with no rights whatsoever as a person. It has to involve some
psychological denial."
-
- And she says the denial extends beyond the
children.
-
- "The mayor of Hampton, Mamie Locke, is black and she
has said nothing," Harrison says. "Dr. Steve Harvey, president of an
elite historically black university, Hampton University, has said
nothing; our superintendent of schools until last year was a black man,
Dr. Billy Cannady, but he said nothing; and the principal of Robert E.
Lee is a black woman, Mrs. Stovall who has said nothing."
-
- I called Harrison [she doesn't mind receiving e-mails
at <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]] after receiving her correspondence. She is determined to
continue her petition drive to get the name of the schools changed.
Harrison told me on the phone, as she had written in her e-mail, "I'm
stressing that this is not a campaign of hate or anger - just that a
change is needed."
-
- And the change should not be limited to Virginia. If
we can't get one of the Black Booker T. Washington schools re-named for
DuBois, at least we should have his name replace that of confederate
rebels.
-
- George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News
Service
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