The author (left) talks with a student at the dedication ceremony for Annette Gordon-Reed Elementary School, October 2022.
After a period of firm resistance, I gave in last year and allowed my hometown school district to name a new elementary school after me.
As a first-grader in 1964, I was the first Black child to enroll in a white school in Conroe, Texas, north of Houston.
I had developed this belief long before the current battles over buildings named for controversial figures and monuments to such people.
As those situations make clear, death—even long ago—provides no real protection for individuals once thought to have been worthy of public honors.