Opinion: Camden should remove Woodrow Wilson name from school
There is an ongoing debate in the public square over the removal of Confederate figures from public school buildings. According to a 2016 report, over 100 schools in 15 states are named after Confederate figures. A quarter of those schools are predominately populated by black students. That’s a problem. It’s a problem because Confederate-named buildings and monuments came about to remind African Americans of their status in a white supremacist society.
These Confederate figures were unabashed racists. So was Woodrow Wilson. To be clear, racism is unlike prejudice or discrimination. Racism is a system of laws and social practices that is organized around the oppressing people of African descent to establish and maintain political, social and economic power in the possession of white people. While Woodrow Wilson too gave voice to the romanticized view of the Confederacy by agreeing to a White House screening of the racist film "Birth of a Nation," it is not the most damning evidence to showing him to be a racist.
Wilson is a son of the south and descended from Confederate soldiers. He identified with the “Lost Cause” mythology in his writings, some of which is quoted in "Birth of a Nation," which serves as a disingenuous justification to leave Confederate named schools and monuments as is. Wilson believed that slave owners in non-border states were, “humane in the treatment of their slaves — kind, indulgent, not over-exacting, and sincerely interested in the physical well-being of their dependents."
As president of Princeton University, Wilson dissuaded African Americans from applying. As governor of New Jersey, Wilson’s administration had no African Americans within it. He also signed into law a sterilization bill fueled by his beliefs in eugenics.
As president, Wilson oversaw the re-segregation of government employees while firing black government supervisors like James Napier, whose signature appeared on every dollar printed in 1912, register of the Treasury. In 1914, the federal civil service instituted a policy of requiring photographs on all job applications, to ensure that more black workers would not be hired.
When challenged by Trotter over segregation in a November 1914 meeting at the White House, Wilson had Trotter and his delegation removed for Trotter failing to remember his place. When confronted by DuBois over the same issue, Wilson responded via New York Times and said, “If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it.”
Wilson initiated the occupation of Haiti in 1915 — contrary to his belief in the self-determination of nations. He blocked a Japanese proposal to include racial equality as a foundational principal of the League of Nations. Wilson’s racial paternalism guided his view of how colonized territories i.e. African territories and the Caribbean, would be ruled after World War I.
Some argue that our nation owes a debt to Wilson for his progressivism that led to such things as the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the graduated income tax, and new antitrust and labor laws; that Wilson should be judged according to the norms of his time. But Wilson’s racism cannot be ignored or excused for the sake of celebrating his accomplishments.
Wilson was a white supremacist who hired racists in his administration to enact public policies to exclude black people while benefiting white people. Wilson received racist advising from racists on foreign policy matters. That is racism in action.
Black Students at Princeton University have called for his name to be removed from the school of Public and International Affairs. They staged a 32 hour sit-in at the university president’s office to convince him. The university’s board of trustees rejected the request of the students. However, their activism inspired students and educators at Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington D.C. to explore a name change of the school. Camden City School District leadership and Woodrow Wilson High School students should at the very least explore a name change as well.
Growing up I rode up and down Federal Street, frequently passing by the school. I’ve attended basketball and football games there. I’ve heard the stories of the Panzaratti truck stationing itself outside the school. My parents met and graduated from there. My aunts and uncles graduated from there; so did my mother-in-law and her siblings. Camden residents share a similar fondness when memories of the high school comes to mind — especially alumni of the school.
It has little to nothing to do with Woodrow Wilson.
While it may not be fair to judge Wilson by prognosticating how he’d govern New Jersey if he were governor today, it is fair to prognosticate. According to what we know about him, he’d probably view Camden and every other municipality like it through a lens of racial paternalism. He’d tell Camden how to administer its business, educate its children and what the residents do and do not deserve. As we see however, these days, you don’t have to be elected to do that, but I digress.
Camden City School District leadership should look to its own school buildings for inspiration. Dr. Charles E. Brimm (my doctor growing up), Riletta T. Cream, Octavious Catto, Rafael Cordero Molina, and Dr. Ulysses S. Wiggins are individuals whose names are on Camden city school buildings and deservedly so. These are individuals of color whose names remind us of their accomplishments and their impact on the lives of black and Latinx children. Woodrow Wilson name is no reminder of his accomplishments, only of his racism. He never exhibited any reason to believe that black or Latinx people were a remote concern of his. Honoring his legacy shouldn’t be a concern of ours.
Rann Miller is an educator and lives in Gloucester Township