School to vote on renaming Jefferson Elementary (he was a slave owner)

[LVT]

BERKELEY
School to vote on renaming Jefferson Elementary

President's slave holdings perturb families, teachers

Patrick Hoge, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 22, 2005


Parents, students and teachers at Berkeley's Thomas Jefferson Elementary School will soon vote on whether to rename their school because the nation's third president was a slave owner.

The question of whether to rename the school has been debated for more than two years -- since several teachers, including an African American mother of three former Jefferson students, said Jefferson's moniker offended them and suggested a name change.

On Monday, Principal Betty Delaney released a list of potential new names -- one nominated by a student, the rest by adults. Parents, students and teachers must first vote on a new name, then take a second vote on whether to replace Jefferson with the new name.

The school board must officially approve any name change.

more...
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/22/BAGIIBSTMA1.DTL

[Bertha Venation]

1. The state is going to have an awful lot of re-naming to do if other

school boards take this up. :eyes:

[davidinalameda]

2. damn crazy Californians

good for them

[Disfronted]

3. Jefferson was a slaveholder and a racist, but…

I am loath to retroactively judge people who lived 200 years ago by today's standards. By the standards of today, Abe Lincoln was a racist, but any school should be proud to bear his name.

There is a line to be drawn at obviously offensive names (like former Confederates, for example) but I think Jefferson is a reasonable choice.

[ronnykmarshall]

10. Lincoln was booted at well.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/22/BAGIIBSTMA1.DTL


<<Jefferson Elementary School is not the first to go through such a process. In 1999, Columbus Elementary School in West Berkeley was rebuilt after it was found to be seismically unsafe, and it was renamed Rosa Parks Elementary School - but only after intense debate about whether Cesar Chavez was a better alternative.

Also, James Garfield Middle School was renamed after Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and Abraham Lincoln Elementary School was renamed for Malcolm X in the 1970s.>>

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

4. It's very easy to find flaws

looking in the rearview mirror. To expect anyone to be enlightened enough to speak out/condemn/take action against slavery, in this example, is to hold them to a false standard.
We cannot judge the actions/morality of the past by current standards. We can only say that we now know better. I beleive if Jefferson were alive today he would agree slavery to be wrong and have nothing to do with it.
You would really have to scour history to find a man of wealth, privlege and southern birth to be a leader in the abolition movement.....

[SaveElmer]

5. Yeah this is a bad idea

First of all it reveals a lack of concern for historical context. The whole of a person needs to be weighed, and the context of the times in which he lived needs to be considered. Certainly Jefferson was a deeply flawed man, but taken as a whole his life was a positive for our country. If we attempt to apply modern standards on historical figures we are in for alot of disappointment.

Secondly, they are going to be renaming alot of schools. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Tyler etc all owned slaves.

[ladjf]

6. Not to mention renaming Washington, D.C.

[ronnykmarshall]

11. CHANGE WASHINGTON STATE NOW!!

Oh damn that wooden tooth son of a bitch !!!

[davidinalameda]

8. actually he wasn't that great

but yourself in the shoes of some of the children--they're going to school in a building named for a slave owner when roughly 150 years ago, they would have been slaves

let them change the names to heroes that they can relate to--there's enough crap named for dead white men

[signmike]

7. Then they can collect all the TJ nickels and

grind him off -- AND the Monticello (slave quarters) from the other side and restrike them all with the new images. Then onto the rest of the money with slave owner images. :D :eyes: :crazy:

[democracyindanger]

9. Ahhh, Berzerkley.

Wonder how much in real dollars it will cost for a name change.