Raleigh school is named after a backer of white supremacy. Petition seeks to rename it.
Updated June 12
An online petition is calling on the Wake County school system to remove the name of Josephus Daniels from Raleigh’s Daniels Middle School.
The online petition, started this week and which had more than 360 signatures as of Thursday afternoon, says removing Daniels’ name from the school would “end the practice of glorifying racism and violence against African Americans.” In 1898, Daniels used his position as publisher of The News and Observer to help fellow white supremacists violently overthrow the multiracial city government in Wilmington.
“Josephus Daniels is not a name that should be honored on a school building — and no student should receive a publicly-funded education under the banner and glorification of white supremacy,” Karen Greene Braithwaite says in the change.org petition she created this week. “By now we know better and can do better.”
Greene Braithwaite says she grew up in Raleigh and went to the former Sherwood Bates Elementary, located near Daniels Middle School. Daniels is on Oberlin Road near the Cameron Village Shopping Center.
Greene Braithwaite says the nation has reached a tipping point in its history with race. The killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minnesota has sparked a call to rename places and remove statues and monuments connected to white supremacists.
Wilmington Massacre of 1898
Daniels, who died in 1948, was a publisher and editor of The News & Observer. His family owned The N&O until McClatchy bought it in 1995.
In 1898, Wilmington was led by a coalition of white and black leaders. Daniels conspired with political leader Furnifold Simmons and former Confederate Army officer Alfred Moore to convince white residents that the black residents could steal their jobs and were a threat to their safety, The N&O reported. This was done through racist speeches, pamphlets and newspaper editorials and cartoons.
Dozens of black residents were killed, a black-owned newspaper was set on fire and several thousand residents were forced to leave their town and hide. (In 2006, The N&O apologized for its role in the massacre.)
The Wilmington Massacre has gotten more notice since the recent publication of the book “Wilmington’s Lie” by journalist David Zucchino, which describes the role Daniels and others played in it.
Former state Rep. Paul “Skip” Stam recently asked the Raleigh City Council to add language about the Wilmington Massacre to the statue of Daniels that sits in Nash Square in downtown Raleigh, the N&O reported.
Wake to study school name changes
There have been efforts over the years to rename Wake schools associated with people who held white supremacist views.
In light of the national conversation about race that has been happening since Floyd’s death, Wake County school board chairman Keith Sutton said Thursday that he expects the district will look at whether to rename some schools. That could include Daniels and other schools named after individuals.
Sutton said at a news conference that he personally supports renaming the school. But Sutton added he’s only one voice among nine on the board.
Diana Graham, a Daniels School parent, is among the people who’ve signed the petition requesting the name change, Graham said it’s the equivalent of telling Jewish students they’re going to a school named after a prominent Nazi.
“He led the life of someone who was systemically inflicting pain and suffering on people of color,” Graham said in an interview with the N&O Thursday. “How can you send anyone to a school named after him?”
This story was originally published June 11, 2020 at 5:25 PM.
