Slaveowner policy causes school to change name from George Washington to Charles Drew

Jet, Dec 1, 1997

School officials and parents at the former George Washington Elementary school in New Orleans recently voted to change the name of that school because the nation's first president was a slaveowner.

While a city policy adopted in 1992 agreed to rename schools which were named after slaveowners, apparently the name of the first president has never been removed from any school in the country, according to the New York Times.

The school is now named Dr. Charles Richard Drew Elementary after the Black surgeon who developed methods to preserve blood plasma. Drew Elementary has about 702 students, and 98 percent are Black.

The renaming of the school is the 22nd change in the city in the last five years. Robert E. Lee School was changed to Ronald McNair, the Black astronaut who was killed aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, and P.G.T. Beauregard Junior High School is now Thurgood Marshall Middle School, which is named after the nation's first Black Supreme Court justice.

The few opponents who were against the decision to rename George Washington school said the board didn't take into account all of Washington's accomplishments or the moral principles of his time.

"Why should African-Americans want their kids to pay respect or pay homage to someone who enslaved their ancestors?" Carl Galmon asked the New York Times. Galmon is a civil rights leader in New Orleans and has led the campaign to change school names.

"This was the most degrading thing that ever happened in North America, and Washington was a part of it," Galmon continued. "To African-Americans, George Washington has about as much meaning as David Duke."

The process to change the school's name began when new principal Lee Caston arrived in 1996. Students and parents helped officials choose names, which were narrowed to three choices, and the parents and staff voted. Then they forwarded their choice to the school board for approval.

The school board's policy leaves it to school communities to start the process to change a school's name.