{"id":10264,"date":"2022-03-04T10:34:09","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T15:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/?p=10264"},"modified":"2022-03-04T10:34:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T15:34:09","slug":"womens-history-month-profile-naomi-l-brooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/womens-history-month-profile-naomi-l-brooks\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s History Month Profile: Naomi L. Brooks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Born April 14, 1934, Naomi Lewis Brooks was \u201cThe Natural\u201d as she led a truly charmed life from very humble beginnings in \u201cseminary mudtown\u201d to an 85-year-old dynamic matriarch of one of this country\u2019s most famous families.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After attending the Seminary School for Colored Children, on the site where Alexandria City High School stands, she rode the city bus to Lyles-Crouch Elementary School and Parker-Gray High School (PGHS). Brooks graduated second in her class from the segregated all-Black PGHS in 1951. Not only was she a strong student, graduating with honors from PGHS, she was also a star athlete. She was a starting forward on the girls\u2019 basketball team and earned the school record for the most points scored in a season and the most points scored in a single game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After high school, Ms. Lewis Brooks earned her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Virginia State College (now Virginia State University), charting her course as an educator. She accepted a teaching position at Charles Houston Elementary School in 1955 and would go on to earn an M.E. in Elementary Education from Virginia State University. She later also taught at Cora Kelly Elementary School. Her elementary and adult teaching career spanned 25 years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brooks always \u201cbloomed where planted,\u201d having moved frequently as a military family, and made a difference in every location by educating her own children, students and even soldiers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On May 21, 2020, the wife, mother, educator and leader died. Her legacy continues to live on in all of the lives she touched along her journey that began and ended in Alexandria. As part of the Identity Project, Matthew Maury Elementary School was renamed Naomi L. Brooks Elementary School on July 1, 2021. More information is available online at <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acps.k12.va.us\/Page\/3681\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Identity Project<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of the Identity Project, Matthew Maury Elementary School was renamed Naomi L. Brooks Elementary School on July 1, 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":10265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acps"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 03:36:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10266,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10264\/revisions\/10266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}