Two public schools in Berkeley, California, will remove their names commemorating Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson amid renewed and widespread calls from the Black Lives Matter movement for racial equality.
The Berkeley Unified School District approved a “Resolution in Support of Black Lives Matter” last week, following weeks of nationwide protests and riots denouncing systemic racism and police brutality sparked by the death of a black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis police custody on Memorial Day. Both schools are named after presidents who owned slaves.
“Noting that Black Lives Matter protests have swept the nation as demonstrators demand justice in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and far too many other Black Americans to list, the Resolution In Support of Black Lives Matter includes the following action steps: