Boston area school divided by its namesake... Students and principal call for Agassiz Elementry to change its name, due to the racist evolutionary theory spun by the 19th century naturalist. "Reading about Agassiz was so painful I had to step back for a while." [says the student heralding the renaming effort]. A sample of Louis Agassiz's mindset "I experienced pity at the sight of this degraded and degenerate race, and their lot inspired compassion in me in thinking that they were really men." A new namesake has already been found-- Maria Baldwin, first black principal of the school [and first to preside over an all-white school in the Northeast in 1889].

Should namesakes of public institutions have a "clean" record? Why did it take 126 years to mobilize a renaming effort?
posted by noom on Mar 19, 2001 - 17 comments