John B. Cary Elementary is now named for educator Lois Harrison-Jones. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Four Richmond schools have been renamed in hopes of stripping them of past Confederate and slaveholding connections.
The Richmond School Board approved the changes, which took effect immediately, at a meeting in June. The motions faced opposition from some members who were either against naming schools after people or renaming them entirely.
Ginter Park Elementary School now honors Frances W. McClenney, the school’s first Black teacher and principal, rather than Lewis Ginter, the philanthropist and Confederate major.
John B. Cary Elementary School is now Lois Harrison-Jones Elementary School, honoring a Richmond teacher who rose to lead the division and became Virginia’s first Black female superintendent instead of Cary, a former Richmond superintendent and City Council chairman who served as a colonel in the Confederate Army and was key in turning the White House of the Confederacy into a museum.
James H. Binford Middle School no longer honors Binford, the city’s first superintendent and a Confederate veteran, and instead pays tribute to the state flower and tree as Dogwood Middle School.
A new building in the works for George Wythe High School will also have a new name: Richmond High School for the Arts, highlighting the school’s educational focus. Wythe was a Founding Father who ultimately freed the people he owned after the American Revolution.
