DC History and Justice Collective

Mayor Muriel Bowser June 28, 2020 The John Wilson Building 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW #406 Washington, DC 20004

Dear Mayor Bowser, We wish we could be writing to congratulate your administration for putting Washington on the map as a pioneer in taking Woodrow Wilson’s name off a school. Instead, we are urging you to join the city of Camden, N.J., Monmouth University and Princeton University in taking this white supremacist off the pedestal on which we have left him for far too long. Washington’s largest, most diverse high school deserves a name that inspires equity, inclusion and a fundamental respect for every student and teacher who walks through its doors. Woodrow Wilson voiced convictions and implemented policies that did just the opposite, hammering into place the thick foundations of segregation and the structural racism that destroyed Black livelihoods and aspirations, especially here in Washington. Yet we continue to honor him.

Why? The DC History and Justice Collective has collected over 17,000 signatures on a petition asking DC Public Schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee to change the name of Woodrow Wilson High School. In that petition, we quote a group of Wilson teachers who noted in 2015 that “we do a disservice to all students by remaining uncritical and silent on the legacy of Woodrow Wilson.” Last week, the D.C. State Board of Education joined our call with its own letter to Chancellor Ferebee. It called Wilson’s record in Washington “ugly and civically corrosive—he worked systematically to demote and segregate D.C.’s African-American civil servants, who had previously built a thriving middle-class community. It is time to change the name.” Students, teachers, and neighbors have joined the community conversation over what a new name should be. Mayor Bowser, we call on you to end the silence today and initiate the name change. Washington may not be the fastest to end the shameful allegiance to a tarnished figurehead but it can yet be the model for affirming our civic values over the racist history that continues to shape our city’s inequities today. Sincerely, Judith Ingram, Wilson Parent

DC History and Justice Collective website: www.renamewilsonhs.org email: [email protected] twitter: @history_dc

Tim Hannapel, Wilson Class of 1977 Zerline Hughes-Spruill, Wilson Parent Sally Schwartz, Wilson Class of 1968 Ayomi Wolff, Wilson Class of 2020 cc: , Council Chairman , At-Large Councilmember and Chairperson of Committee on Education , Ward 3 Councilmember , At-Large Councilmember , At-Large Councilmember Robert White, At-Large Councilmember , Ward 1 Councilmember , Ward 2 Councilmember Brandon Todd, Ward 4 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, Ward 5 Councilmember Charles Allen, Ward 6 Councilmember Vincent Gray, Ward 7 Councilmember , Sr., Ward 8 Councilmember Ruth Wattenberg, SBOE President Markus Batchelor, SBOE Vice President Lewis Ferebee, DCPS Chancellor Drewana Bey, DCPS instructional Superintendent of Cluster 8

DC History and Justice Collective website: www.renamewilsonhs.org email: [email protected] twitter: @history_dc