Barack Obama
Obama
(Julio Cortez)
How did Mississippi beat us?
We've always depended on our neighbor to the west to prevent us from being America's caboose--in everything.
In education. In healthcare. In poverty.
You name it.
Mississippi consistently keeps us from being dead last, the bottom of the barrel, the gum on the sole of the nation's shoe.
Thank God for Mississippi, we shout! (As pitiable as such pride may be.)
Except for this: Mississippi did something that makes so much sense it's almost laughable.
It allowed a local PTA and its community to rename schools named for a Confederate "heroes".
The Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees allowed parents of students in its district and residents living near the district's schools to rename Jefferson Davis (named for the president of the failed Confederacy), George (named for Confederate colonel and later U.S. Senator James Zachariah George) and Robert E Lee elementary schools, if they chose to do so.
This week, the PTA president informed the board that the community had voted to rename Davis IB Elementary School--which holds about 300 students, 97 percent of whom are African-American--as Barack Obama Magnet 1B Elementary School.
The re-branding won't be complete until the 2018-19 school year, allowing time for re-do signs, websites, stationary and other aspects of the transition.
But still, they beat us.
They beat us by doing the right thing.
They beat us because our big brothers and sisters in Montgomery--along with Auntie Kay--don't trust us (local citizens) to do what we think is best for us (local citizens).
Particularly when it comes to monuments to the Confederacy, including schools named for the men who went to war against America to preserve slavery.
Barack Obama Magnet 1B is the 16th school in the nation named for our 44th president, spread across 12 states.
My stance on Confederate monuments is no secret, but that's not the debate here.
It's a travesty that schools were lumped into the hideous Alabama Memorial Preservation Law, which Gov. Kay Ivey signed in late May, not long after taking office, making it illegal for local governments to move or alter historical monuments that sit on public property and have been in place for more than four decades.
It's a travesty because schools matter, even more so than the thousands of pounds of concrete that have been the source of angst, consternation and even tragedy in this nation for far too long.
Schools matter because, outside of the home, they are the most important institutions in young people's lives.
Because they are (or should be) a source of pride--a name emblazoned across a jersey, band uniform or T-shirt, a named recalled with fondness years later when someone asks, "Where'd you go?"
Because they are where young minds are nurtured, young hearts are strengthened and young lives are guided towards greatness.
Or they should be.
I attended Dunbar Elementary School in Tulsa, Okla., named for Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African-American poet.
I daresay I may not have learned about Dunbar and how he created art with words had the school been named for anyone else.
And I know that today my son's middle name would not be Laurence had I not gone there.
Some students in Huntsville launched a petition to change the name of Lee High School to honor former student Paulette Turner, who integrated the then-all-white school in 1964 and went on to become a successful IBM executive.
They've garnered more than 2,700 signatures supporting the change (including mine)--but Auntie Kay won't let them do it because, see, she knows better.
A number of parents in Montgomery are swelling with the desire to change the names of two high schools in that city--Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.
One game, two Confederate "heroes"
The student bodies of both schools, just like at Lee High School in Huntsville, are predominantly African-American. Maybe Davis or Lee could be named for our first African-American president.
Imagine the pride and inspiration it would engender in those students as they walked through doors each day bearing his name, or donned jerseys, band uniforms or T-shorts bearing "Obama" across their chest.
Administrators there, however, are "scared" to push for the name change, and unwilling "to make a difference," in the words of one parent. Perhaps because the Montgomery County School System has 12 failing schools, including Davis, and is under state intervention--and, well, you wouldn't want to anger Auntie Kay.
She, after all, knows better.
The beauty of what occurred in Jackson, Mississippi was in its process.
Their PTA solicited suggestions from parents, students and school staff. Each class made a presentation on the person they supported. Then on October 5, the community voted--using paper ballots.
PTA president Janelle Jefferson (oh, the irony) explained the community's choice: "They could relate to Barack Obama because of his achievements, because he looks like them."
Because they knew better.
Much better than us.
Roy S. Johnson's column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. He may be reached at rjohnson@al.com or twitter.com/roysj