An Atlanta school board committee dropped its recommendation to rename Henry W. Grady High School after Ida B. Wells following a student vote that showed overwhelming support for a location-based name.
In an electronic vote, 61.4% of Grady students picked Midtown High School as their first choice to replace the school’s current name.
Two other choices trailed significantly. Ida B. Wells High School received 19.8% of the student vote and Piedmont High School received 18.8%. District officials said 687 students voted, about 46% of the student body.
In response to that vote, a naming committee on Tuesday reconsidered its earlier recommendation to rename the school after Wells. The group unanimously switched to Midtown instead.
The school board, which must approve the decision, will consider the Midtown name at its Monday meeting.
“I think the geographic name seemed to be something that people felt safe with and proud of, and there’s certainly a nice culture and history to Midtown as well,” said board member Leslie Grant, who led the committee.
Grady’s student body is about 45% white, 40% Black, 7% Hispanic, 5% multiracial and 3% Asian, according to the most recent data on the district’s website. Of the students that voted, 59% identified as white and 26% as Black.
Grant told her fellow committee members that she did not have a demographic breakdown for the remaining voters. Fifteen percent of white students ranked Wells as their top choice, compared to 26% of non-white students, Grant reported.
The school board gave students a chance to weigh in following public outcry over the committee’s initial proposal to rename the school after Wells. Four of the seven committee members, including Grant, had supported naming the school after the civil rights activist and Black journalist who died in 1931.
But some parents and students argued the Wells’ recommendation ignored public input because an earlier survey showed strong support for a location-based name.
Critics called on the board to reject the Wells’ name. The board agreed to postpone its decision to give the students a chance to vote on three suggested names: Wells, Midtown and Piedmont.
Jay Hammond, a 2020 Grady graduate who served on the committee and favored naming the school after Wells, said the original process “was fair and just.” But, he said he understands many wanted the Midtown name.
Renaming the school to honor Wells would have made a powerful and inspiring statement, he said. Born during the Civil War and into slavery, she became an influential journalist whose work exposed lynching.
“There was no time for generational wealth to be developed to go from being a child of slavery to being... one of the most notable women reporters,” Hammond said, in a phone interview after Tuesday’s meeting. “Overcoming the circumstance speaks to what all students want to do.”
School board Chairman Jason Esteves formed the committee in March to review the Grady name. Grady was a managing editor of The Atlanta Constitution who died in 1889. He spoke about the supremacy of the white race while promoting a vision of the “New South.”
The committee determined in August that the school should no longer pay tribute to his legacy.
“It was important to make sure that we are moving forward in ways that reflect what we want to be instead of what we have been, and this was a really important piece,” said Grant.
