Atlanta school board poised to rename Grady High after student vote

By Collin Kelley

The Atlanta Board of Education is expected to vote on renaming Midtown’s Henry W. Grady High School at its Dec. 7 meeting after hearing from the student body.

The board had originally planned to vote in November on a recommendation to change the name to Ida B. Wells High School, but community outcry about the process led to a postponement.

During the month of November, every student at Grady was given the opportunity to anonymously vote for the three names forwarded by a renaming

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Board member Leslie Grant said the committee, which she chaired, agreed that whichever name the students choose in ranked voting will be forwarded to the school board as a final recommendation. The board could choose to accept the student body decision or choose another name.

The renaming of Grady has caused division in the community as evidenced by fighting on community message boards and dueling online petitions.

The decision to postpone and let students vote was met with a mixture of opinions by parents and community members commenting during the Nov. 2 virtual meeting. Many were upset that Grady alumni would not be included in the vote. Board member Cynthia Briscoe Brown suggested that Howard Middle School students also be given a vote as a feeder school in the Grady cluster, but her recommendation failed to get any traction.

The controversy over the renaming reached a tipping point after a survey sent to parents, students, faculty, and alumni showed a decisive preference for Midtown High School. Ida. B. Wells came in second and Piedmont third. There were two other names on the survey – Freedom High School and Thomas E. Adger, in honor of the school’s first Black principal.

However, Grant said the survey was merely used to inform the committee’s decision, which leaned toward equity rather than popular vote.

The move to rename Grady began in March as communities across the nation re-examined the legacy of racism and white supremacy in the names of its buildings, streets, parks, and monuments.

Grady was named after journalist, orator, and white supremacist Henry W. Grady. Ida B. Wells was a pioneering Black journalist who investigated lynchings in the South after the Civil War.

Chairman Jason Esteves said the board would likely consider new names for Brown Middle School and Forrest Hill Academy – both named after notorious Civil War-era white supremacists – in December or January. Esteves also empaneled a new naming committee which must decide what to rename Grady’s football stadium.

The Dec. 7 board meeting begins at 6 p.m. and can be watched on the Atlanta School Board’s Facebook page.