The Racial Politics of Renaming an Elementary School Rosa Parks

• In Event: Leadership, Policy, and Politics

Abstract

This paper examines how an African American community and an all white school board struggled along racial lines over re-naming an elementary school Rosa Parks. Local citizens revealed contradictions between the school district’s public support for diversity versus how it enforces policy through a universal, race-blind approach to avoid these principles and values in practice. Subsequently, the study chronicles an African American community’s successful, political actions in challenging their local school board to rename their school Rosa Parks. These actions nurtured the pedagogical conditions to augment the cultural identity of the school, bolster community involvement, and improve academic achievement. Implications suggest school leaders should account for the diverse contexts of the communities that schools are situated when making policy decisions.

Author

• Darius Derron Prier, Duquesne University