Following its decision last month to change the name of J.E.B. Stuart High School, the Fairfax County School Board has scheduled an open meeting for Saturday, Sept. 9, to solicit new name suggestions for the school, and a vote on the new name is slated for the following Saturday, Sept. 16. Steve Spitz of the People Demanding Action that began advocating for the name change two years ago, has issued a press statement advocating the name be changed to Thurgood Marshall High School. While Stuart was a Confederate general fighting to defend the institution of slavery in the Civil War, Marshall was the first African-American member of the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Justice Marshall lived in our community while he was a U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1968 until he died in 1993,” Spitz wrote. “His widow lives in the same house in the community where she has resided for 49 years.”
