Hampton School Board approves new names for 5 schools

Ann Kilgore, Hampton’s first female mayor, didn’t keep most of her speeches.

But her daughter, former Newport News superintendent Ashby Kilgore, found one from 1970 that seemed poignant after the Hampton School Board suggested naming a school for her. She read it to the board at a May 12 public hearing on the board’s plans to rename five schools.

“We have a great opportunity to make our world a place of brotherhood. We’ve always had this chance, but we keep turning aside,” Kilgore said. “I believe that we can become the pioneers in this battle for brotherhood — you can plant a standard where a standard never flew.”

At a meeting Wednesday, board members unanimously approved which names from their six-person shortlist would go with each school building.

• John B. Cary Elementary, named for a former Confederate officer, will be named for Mary T. Christian, a longtime educator and state legislator.

• Tucker-Capps Elementary Fundamental is named for two early Virginians, including one of the first slave owners in the colony. It will be named for Mary W. Jackson, a trailblazing NASA engineer.

• Booker Elementary, named for a family that enslaved dozens on their plantation, will be named for Albert W. Patrick III, a former board chair and district court judge.

• John Tyler Elementary, named for the president who owned slaves, will be named for Mary S. Peake, who taught freed slaves during the Civil War.

• Spratley Gifted Center, named for a judge who enforced racist statutes, will be named for Kilgore.

There are more buildings with names board members have discussed changing, but they agreed on five for now to stay within the district’s budget of $150,000 for renaming next year. The name changes will be finished before the start of next school year.

“It’s not just the adults that are looking at what’s happening in our city, it’s the children,” said board member Richard Mason during the input session. “If we want to plan ahead and create that city of brotherhood that was spoken about earlier, we have to look at the legacy that is left behind.”

Hampton’s renaming process has looked a little different than some other school districts that have recently renamed schools. In Newport News, name nominations were collected through an online form and from students at the impacted schools. A task force narrowed down the suggestions, and the superintendent made a recommendation that the School Board approved earlier this week.

Some of the name suggestions came from a committee Hampton set up over the summer to look at all the district’s names, made up of school and Hampton History Museum staff. Their report, which was given to the school board in September, suggested Christian, Peake and three NASA Langley mathematicians: Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Dorothy Vaughan.

During a special board meeting April 27, board members reached a consensus about the five schools to rename first and suggested the two other names. Vaughan’s name wasn’t included in the board’s shortlist of six names.

The board has been mostly in agreement throughout the process about names. Chair Joe Kilgore spoke one-on-one with board members ahead of Wednesday’s meeting to decide which name should go with each school.

All three speakers at the input session supported the process. One speaker during the board’s May 5 meeting and another on Wednesday opposed renaming and suggested not naming schools for people.

Board members said they’ve heard a lot more from the public in emails. Kilgore, who is unrelated to the former mayor, said they’d heard from students at the schools too.

All of the names are from prominent Hampton residents. They’re a diverse group, mostly women in a city where many schools carry the name of men.

“This group of individuals reflects the true population and diversity that Hampton offers,” said board member Jason Samuels on Wednesday.

Mary Jackson was NASA’s first African American female engineer and originally from Hampton, attending Phenix Training School and the Hampton Institute. Last year, NASA named its headquarters in Washington in her honor.

Jackson, along with Vaughan and Johnson, was featured in the book and movie “Hidden Figures.” Johnson was included on the board’s short list, but did not have a school named for her Wednesday. Board members said Wednesday they might consider her for another school they want to rename in the future.

Mary Peake was a Hampton educator who died of tuberculosis in February 1862. She secretly taught Black students in her home before the Civil War, and after the burning of Hampton, taught freed enslaved people at a school that is now on the campus of Hampton University even as her health failed.

This won’t be the first Hampton school to carry her name. The district’s former gifted center for elementary students that closed in 2010 was named for her.

Mary Christian served nine consecutive terms in the House of Delegates, dying in 2019 at the age of 95. She was the first African American woman to serve on the school board and in 1980 and worked as a Hampton University professor and dean of the university’s School of Liberal Arts and Education.

She was a fixture in Hampton politics and friend to many of the city’s leaders. Samuels described her as a personal mentor of his.

Albert Patrick III was a district court judge from 1995 until his death in 2017. He served several terms on the School Board as well, including seven years as chairman, and served as president of the Virginia School Boards Association.

Ann Kilgore was mayor during desegregation, one of her proudest accomplishments according to her family. Hampton was one of only a few school districts in Virginia not to participate in Massive Resistance, when schools resisted complying with the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education to desegregate schools.

While she was mayor, the city donated land for Thomas Nelson Community College and build the Hampton Coliseum and the current city hall. She also was an English teacher at Hampton High School.

Her career helped inspire both of her children. Elizabeth Byrd was a Hampton language arts specialist for years, and Ashby Kilgore started her career off as a high school teacher, setting her on a path to become the first woman to lead Newport News Public Schools.

“I think school boards want names that are reflective of current heroes, and I think that she’s a part of that, in what she stood for in 1970,” Kilgore said.

Matt Jones, 757-247-4729, mjones@dailypress.com