Two Prince William County School Board members who led the charge to rename Mills Godwin Middle School are not interested in changing more school names.
“No. We’re not having a discussion. We are done,” said Potomac District School Board member Justin Wilk.
Wilk suggested on March 2 to rename Dale City’s first intermediate school Godwin Middle, named after a two-term Virginia governor who supported massive resistance but later supported desegregation by the time he entered the Governor’s Mansion, to George C. Hampton Middle School. The Board Wednesday night upheld the move for Hampton, a local philanthropist.
In a letter, NAACP Prince William County Chapter President Karl Brower supported the decision to rename Godwin. He also proposed the Board look at other buildings and facilities named after Confederate heroes, like General Stonewall Jackson.
Across the country, school boards are in the process of renaming Confederate and segregation themed schools…However, we have memorials to men whose legacy we now recognize to be as shameful and to have been clearly on the wrong side of history. The steadfastness with which some people have or will oppose renaming these memorials is in the final analysis a function of white privilege and an explicit affirmation of white dominance over minorities in general and African Americans in particular. Can you imagine a school in Virginia named after Captain John Brown? What’s the difference
between Stonewall Jackson and John Brown, save the latter could provide a biblically based moral imperative for his insurrection, fought and died in the interest of freedom for those less fortunate than himself rather to preserve a system of oppression from which he
benefitted.
Stonewall Jackson High School sits just outside Manassas in Prince William County. As soon as Brower’s letter began circulating among those who pay close attention to educational issues — a crowd that had been engaged after the surprise decision to rename Godwin — began emailing School Board members to see if this school was next for a name change.
“A name change at Stonewall Jackson? I’ll just say the change the NAACP does not speak fro me.,” said Wilk. “This is a whole different situation than Mills Godwin.”
Neabsco District School Board member Diane Raulston agrees.
“I am not looking to rewrite history. That was someone who lived long ago, in a time that totally different,” she said, adding that now is not the time to have a discussion for renaming the high school.
The name change for Godwin Middle School will take place over the summer. New signage for the school should be in place by the first day of school in September.
School leaders will once again be forced to name a new elementary school to be built at Potomac Shores near Dumfries. The school will be located in Wilk’s district, and he said he would support naming it after Betty Covington — the woman he beat in a General Election in November for a seat on the School Board.
