{"id":286,"date":"2020-09-22T13:42:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T17:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/?p=286"},"modified":"2020-11-22T15:00:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-22T20:00:03","slug":"thomas-chambliss-williams-spearheads-campaign-to-remove-his-name-from-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/2020\/09\/22\/thomas-chambliss-williams-spearheads-campaign-to-remove-his-name-from-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Chambliss Williams Spearheads Campaign To Remove His Name From High School"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ethan Gotsch<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Last week Theogony<\/em> caught up with former ACPS Superintendent Thomas Chambliss Williams, the namesake of T.C. Williams High School, who has been working around the clock to convince the School Board to remove his name from Alexandria\u2019s only high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook, I was a racist, a segregationist, and an all-around horrible person,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure what more I could have said or done to convince the School Board that I was the last person an esteemed school should be named after.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Williams, who was the Superintendent of ACPS from the 1930s to the 1960s, reflected on his long life. \u201cTimes have changed a lot since I was Superintendent. T.C. students deserve so much better than a school named after me,\u201d said Williams. \u201cLots of people have asked for this change, but I figured if THE Thomas Chambliss Williams said the name should be changed, maybe that would convince the school board to finally do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked to explain some of the horrible actions he took as Superintendent, Williams said that he fought to keep Black students and white students in separate schools and resisted integration after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education<\/em> decision by the Supreme Court. In 1958, 14 black students went to federal court in an effort to force Williams to let them attend the same schools as white students in Alexandria. When Williams found out that an ACPS cafeteria worker, Blois O. Hundley, was part of the lawsuit he fired her. He denied Black students the materials, textbooks, and other resources that white students had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t kidding when I said I was a bad dude,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThe fact that I exercised so much discrimination towards black students is just unforgivable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other ACPS schools are also named after people, such as James Polk Elementary and George Washington Middle School. When asked about his position on the T.C. Williams name change, former President Washington replied, \u201cNo comment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1962, shortly after the school was named T.C. Williams, The Washington Post<\/em> ran a story that said Williams \u201cfelt honored but wished the school had been named for someone else.\u201d Today, Williams\u2019 position about the school name is stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really unacceptable that the school is still named after me. There are so many Alexandrians of color who suffered under my racist policies and they deserve to have a school named after them,\u201d said Williams, \u201cI ruined countless lives, and students and people in the community are reminded of my unforgivable actions every time they walk in or even drive by the school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opponents of the name change say they don\u2019t want to tarnish the feel-good image of the school brought about by the Disney movie, Remember the Titans<\/em>. However, it\u2019s a Disney movie, and T.C. Williams was a real live racist. In fact, an anonymous source indicates that Disney is working on a sequel entitled Remember the Titans 2: Forget T.C. Williams<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c2020 has been a bad year for everyone, but maybe one good thing can come out of it – maybe my name will finally be removed from Alexandria\u2019s high school,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the School Board decides to change the name, current T.C. students will have a leading role in choosing the new name. Top contenders among students include Schooly McSchoolface, Riverdale High, and I.M. High School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week Theogony caught up with former ACPS superintendent Thomas Chambliss Williams, the namesake of T.C. Williams High School, who has been working around the clock to convince the ACPS School Board to remove his name from Alexandria\u2019s only high school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-beet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Williams-satire-photo-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2020-2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}