Grade School Students Have Spoken: Jefferson Davis Is Out, Barack Obama Is In


The students of Davis International Baccalaureate Elementary School in Jackson, Miss., voted to rename their school after President Barack Obama. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times
The latest chapter in the country’s continuing reckoning with the legacy of the Confederacy is being written by grade school students.

A call to rename Davis International Baccalaureate Elementary School, which was named after Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, emerged not from protests or rallies, but from one student’s summer reading assignment. It grew into a participatory civics lesson, as students from kindergarten through fifth grade at the school, in Jackson, Miss., nominated new names, assembled PowerPoint presentations and, at the beginning of the month, cast ballots.

On Oct. 17, at a meeting of the Jackson Public Schools board of trustees, Janelle Jefferson, the president of the school’s PTA, announced that the school community had overwhelmingly voted to rename the school after President Barack Obama.

“If we are going to teach our kids a lesson, it’s this: If there’s something you feel strongly about that you feel needs to change, continue to agitate for it,” Ms. Jefferson said in an interview.

The idea for the name change, which will take effect next academic year, came from Farah Jaentschke, a former student at the school who is now in eighth grade. Four years ago, Farah chose a biography of Davis to fulfill a summer reading requirement, said her mother, Ercilla Hendrix.

It was only after reading the book that Farah realized its subject was the same Davis for which her school was named, Ms. Hendrix said.

“And she said: ‘Well, that doesn’t seem right. How can we get the name changed? I just don’t feel like that’s the right name for our school,’” Ms. Hendrix recalled.

Almost 98 percent of the students at Davis Magnet, as community members call the school, are black. It has been ranked as Mississippi’s top elementary school, according to the district’s website, and for the past several years has achieved an A grade from the state’s education department. The state superintendent also recognized the school’s students for achieving the highest reading proficiency in the state during the 2015-16 school year.

From Columbia, S.C., to Charlottesville, Va., to New York City, communities have grappled in recent years with Confederate names and symbols in public spaces. Two other elementary schools in the Jackson school district are named for Confederate generals and leaders, according to The Jackson Free Press: one for James Zachariah George, a colonel who signed the state’s secession ordinance, and one for Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Farah wrote a letter to the school’s principal, but the issue faded when she left Davis for middle school. This summer, it resurfaced after another parent posted a list on social media of the historical figures after whom schools in the district were named.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/us/mississippi-school-rename-obama.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0