There's still a Washington High School in New Orleans - it's named after Booker T. Washington, and it has been for as long as I can remember. The school in question was George Washington Elementary School. Not just poor old George got deposed, so did P.G.T. Beauregard, Robert E. Lee, C.C. Claiborne, and a few others better known to students of Louisiana history, like McDonough (rich slaveowner), Judah P. Benjamin (another rich slaveowner) and Gayarre (apologist for the ancient regime). In 1997, the Orleans Parish School Board voted to change the names of a number of the following public schools. I think it's great, myself. New Orleans is majority black, the public schools are de facto segregated, why not name the schools that black children attend after black heroes and heroines? It's only one school in one town, after all. And it reminds us that "all men are created equal" didn't mean blacks, and it didn't mean Indians, and it didn't mean women. It has nothing to do with "sensitivity" and everything to do with pride. Right on!
Recent Changes in the Names of Public Schools in New Orleans
McDonogh 36 to Mahalia Jackson
Jeff Davis to Ernest Morial
Beauregard to Thurgood Marshall
Marie C. Couvent to A.P. Tureaud
Robt. E. Lee to Dr. Ronald McNair
McDonogh 31 to Morris F.X. Jeff
J.P. Benjamin to Mary McLeod Bethune
McDonogh 38 to Myrtle R. Banks
McDonogh 19 to Louis Armstrong
Peters Middle to Israel Augustine Middle
Gayarre to Oretha Castle Haley
E.D. White to Langston Hughes
Phillips Elementary to Vorice Jackson Waters
Claiborne Magnet to Parkview Magnet
Palmer to Lorraine Hansberry
F.T. Nicholls to Frederick Douglass
Meyer to Harriet Tubman
Danneel Pre-Vocational to Arthur Ashe
McDonogh #40 to Barbara Jordan
George Washington to Dr. Charles Drew
"Be it further enacted; That all persons who shall teach, or permit
or cause to be taught, any slave in this state, to read or write,
shall, on conviction thereof, before any court of competent
jurisdiction be imprisoned not less than one month nor more than
twelve months."
[Louisiana, Acts, 1830] |
