On April 20, after months of delay, DC Public Schools announced its pick to replace Woodrow Wilson’s name on Washington’s most diverse school: August Wilson. Now the suggested name goes before the DC Council, where we hope Members will see the proposal for what it is: a sleight-of-hand to avoid speaking out against the ravages of segregation that President Wilson brought to Washington and that White residents have profited from to this day, to the detriment of the city’s Black residents.
We urge the Council to vote it down.
We take no issue with August Wilson, who is deservedly celebrated as one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century and a chronicler of the Black experience. Yet August Wilson has no tie with DC or with the school, beyond landing on the ninth-grade required reading list year after year.
He just happened to be the most widely known Wilson offered up by those who favored the most painless and least expensive transition possible, the nostalgic alumni guardians of school spirit, and the defenders of the Wilson brand of greater resources than any other DC public high school and the attendant high college admissions track record. “As long as it stays Wilson,” we heard from certain quarters, a new name would be fine.
Yet “as long as it stays Wilson,” we can skirt the hard conversations on persistent, pernicious racial inequity in DC neighborhoods, such as the one surrounding Wilson, that the school name change should have sparked. We squander a chance to honor pathbreaking Black educators such as Principal Vincent Reed and long-time teacher Edna Jackson – both of whom helped shape the school and inspire students White and Black. We miss an opportunity to make this the first DC public high school to be named after a woman.
With this half-measure, DCPS has missed a chance to take a principled stand on the side of the students and teachers who have worked so hard over the years to remove the tainted name Wilson from their school. We hope the DC Council won’t do the same.
A CALL TO ACTION:
Please take a moment to email the DC Council to let them know you would like them to reject August Wilson as the new name, and indicate who is your preferred choice. Personal emails are highly effective as a lobbying tool, although you can cut and paste the points above, or some of the bullet points below. A personal email briefly saying who you are, what is your connection to the school, and why you think the Council should reject August Wilson in favor of Edna Jackson and/or Vincent Reed, would count a lot.
Email addresses (you can cut and paste these right into your “TO” line)
pmendelson@dccouncil.us; kmcduffie@dccouncil.us; abonds@dccouncil.us; esilverman@dccouncil.us; rwhite@dccouncil.us; chenderson@dccouncil.us; bnadeau@dccouncil.us; bpinto@dccouncil.us; mcheh@dccouncil.us; jlewisgeorge@dccouncil.us; callen@dccouncil.us; vgray@dccouncil.us; twhite@dccouncil.us
Please include the DC History and Justice Collective in the “CC” line, so we can collect all of your hard work: dchjcollective@gmail.com
Other points to consider:
-Edna Jackson and Vince Reed combined to take first place in the public survey, with 36%., compared to August Wilson at 29%.
-Even a cursory analysis of the quantity, quality, and content of the more than 2,000 comments on the public survey shows that public sentiment strongly favors Edna Jackson and/or Vincent Reed, and are based on more rigorous and compelling reasoning. In other words, the 29% who favored August Wilson did not typically justify their choice with personal comment, or, they “liked” a shallow comment that “[i]t would be cheaper (keep all the stuff that says Wilson) and Wilson has been known as Wilson for so long.” In contrast, the 36% or respondents who favored Edna Jackson and/or Vince Reed typically left compelling personal comments about Reed or Jackson’s connection to the school, and why racial justice would be served better by naming the school for either or both of them.
-DCPS appears to have completely ignored the strong sentiment of the current student body and faculty. Specifically, the Wilson Beacon issued a very strong op-ed endorsing Edna Jackson. Moreover, the faculty voted by an overwhelming 70% in favor of Edna Jackson.
-There is currently no DCPS high school named for a woman, or by definition, a Black woman. Edna Jackson would remedy that shocking deficiency.
-The overwhelming weight of organized advocacy strongly favors Edna Jackson and/or Vince Reed. There were myriad Washington Post op-eds and Letters to the Editor in favor of Jackson or Reed. There was no similar organized public advocacy for August Wilson.