Fairfax County, Va., is renaming my high school.
As news goes, it ranks somewhere below war in the Middle East, Republican antics in the House of Representatives and Big Don Trump’s latest meltdown.
As renamings go, it’s sort of a “meh.”
Most of us didn’t know who Wilbert Tucker Woodson was even when we were attending the school named for him.
W.T. Woodson was superintendent of Fairfax County Schools from 1929-61, a time in which the district grew from a small rural one to one of the largest on the East Coast. He was in charge during the years of Massive Resistance, when the state of Virginia did everything it could to avoid desegregating its schools in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Brown decision.
Actually, he was what was known as a gradualist. In his Washington Post obituary in 1983, “On the integration question, Mr. Woodson was a gradualist, urging that black and white children begin going to school together in the first grade and continue together thereafter.”
To be fair, he didn’t really believe in integration at all. This is what he wrote in a 1959 memo to a member of the school board:
“The order to desegregate schools is highly improper and infringes on human rights. To force integration of schools is to force social mixing, since attendance in public schools is usually compulsory.”
Sadly, he was a man of his time in a state that has little to be proud of in that time. Virginia reacted to the Brown decision in the 1950s by closing the public schools in some southside counties rather than desegregate. Ironically in the long run, massive resistance was the father of the Religious Right.
You see, when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson — both Virginians — got started, it was founding so-called Christian academies so that white kids didn’t have to go to school with black kids. They got involved with politics in an effort to get tax exemptions for their schools. Abortion came later.
For all the progress Virginia has made, there’s still a long way to go.
Robert E. Lee High School was renamed for John Lewis.
J.E.B. Stuart High School was renamed Justice High.
So much for W.T. Woodson.
Fairfax County will take some time and then rename the school. The name that came up first is one that shows very little imagination. Carter G. Woodson was from another part of Virginia and is known as the father of black history.
Bad idea.
For one thing, I can’t help wondering if his name would even have been considered if it wasn’t the same as old W.T.
For another, it would be nice now that the school has been open for more than 60 years to name it after someone who has some connection with its history.
One possibility is George Felton, who came to Woodson in 1965 to teach physical education. He was the first African-American teacher ever at the school.
A better choice may not be black, but he taught and coached at the school from its opening in 1962 until 1997. In fact, in 1965 he was the coach who integrated the basketball team and took the Cavaliers all the way to the state tournament. He is a beloved figure to two generations of Woodson graduates.
The gymnasium is already named after him.
Think about it.
Paul “Red” Jenkins High School.
It’s got my vote.