Photograph by Andrew Beaujon.
Alexandria’s school board voted Thursday to change the name of T.C. Williams High School to Alexandria City High School. The new name will take effect on July 1 of this year. The school’s teams’ nickname will remain the Titans, as was made famous in the remarkably inaccurate Disney film
Remember the Titans.
⚪ It s official! The School Board has voted and the new school name for @tcwtitans is Alexandria City High School! The new school name will be implemented starting July 1, 2021. #ForeverTheTitans#RememberTheTitanspic.twitter.com/R4rARtXy9K
T.C. Williams was named for Thomas Chambliss Williams, a former superintendent of Alexandria’s school system who was an avowed segregationist. A long-simmering movement to shed his name picked up speed last year during the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd’s killing by a police officer in Minneapolis. The school board vote followed a renaming process that solicited names from students (w
Remember the Titans starring Denzel Washington, is dumping its 56-year-old name over ties to racism.
When the school opened in 1965, it was named after former school superintendent Thomas Chambliss Williams, a strict segregationist during the 1930s. The school has long criticized its namesake, and on its website, the school system says that Williams and his history “could not have been more inconsistent with the vibrant, diverse and inclusive place we know today.”
The site adds that Williams “did everything possible to slow down the process of integration in Alexandria.” And the district has debated changing the name for some time.
T C Williams High, Matthew Maury Elementary announce finalists for renaming fox5dc.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from fox5dc.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
School from ‘Remember the Titans’ Could Be Renamed After Kamala Harris, George Floyd, or Ruth Bader Ginsberg
15 Jan 2021
T.C. Williams High School, which became nationally renowned as the high school in the 2000 Disney football film,
Remember The Titans, may be renamed “Kamala Harris High School,” according to reports.
The Alexandria City School Board, which administers T.C. Williams High, voted unanimously to delete the school’s name because Thomas Chambliss Williams, a local school superintendent for three decades starting in the 1930s, was also well-known as a Virginia segregationist.
According to
Alexandria Living, the school board insisted that Williams was a “staunch segregationist whose views could not have been more inconsistent with the vibrant, diverse, and inclusive place we know today.”
With Name Changes, Schools Transform Racial Reckoning Into Real-Life Civics Lessons 7 min read
Students are involved in renaming T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va. The storied school was originally named for a former superintendent who was an avowed segregationist.Photo by Addisnog – licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons Share article Copy URL
Each day that Lorraine Johnson stepped on campus at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., she struggled to shake the fact that the school’s namesake fought for decades to prevent black and white students from attending school together.
Johnson, a senior at the school, is among the Black students that led the push to change the name of the storied school, featured in the 2000 movie “Remember the Titans,” because of the segregationist views held by Thomas Chambliss Williams, the former school district superintendent for whom the school is named.