Confederate Name Replaced With NASA Pioneer's At Fairfax School

FAIRFAX CITY, VA — History was made Friday morning in the City of Fairfax, when a group of students, administrators, educators, local officials, and honored guests cut the ribbon on the newly renamed Katherine Johnson Middle School.

Dr. Phyllis Pajardo, the City of Fairfax Schools superintendent, praised the choice of Johnson, describing her as a person who broke barriers both as a woman and as an African American.

"Women going into math and science in the '50s was unheard of, right?" she said. "Additionally, to participate in the historic space program, again at a very young age, makes it also historic. She's also had a great service to the community. She's also a former teacher. So, for all of those reasons, our board decided to select that name."

Born in 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, Johnson was one of three Black students to integrate West Virginia's graduate school in mathematics.

Johnson went on to become a mathematician who worked for NASA for 33 years. In 1962, she was part of the team that prepared for the orbital mission by John Glenn, controlling the trajectory of Glenn's capsule mission from liftoff to splashdown.

Principal Tammara Hanna said on Friday that everyone at the school was excited about the new name.

"We were excited to have somebody who made such wonderful contributions to science, as well as being a woman and a minority at a time when it was very difficult in both of those areas to excel," she said. "We're hoping that a lot of our kids are going to be able see how that really can inspire them to not let things be against them but use those things in their favor."

Last September, the City of Fairfax School Board voted 4-1 to rename the school, after members of the community questioned the appropriateness of having the school named for a Confederate soldier. The school had originally been named in 1959 to honor Sidney Lanier, who in the decades after his death was embraced as the "poet of the Confederacy."

Once the decision was made to rename the school, city staff winnowed down hundreds of names suggested by the public to a list of six for the board to consider. At its Nov. 2, meeting, the board voted unanimously to rename the school to honor Johnson.

"Representation matters," Pajardo said. "Names matter. They inspire people. With students here, they can be inspired to know that they can study math, they can study science. In terms of race, it's certainly historic that we're naming the school after an African American woman. The first middle school in the country being named for her? Again, historic."

Isabella Benavides, a seventh grader who helped with the planning of Friday's ceremony, was pleased to be at the school when the renaming took place.

"I think it's amazing because I'll be in the first eighth grade class at Katherine Johnson," she said. "I think that's really awesome and I love that it's being named after a woman."

Several relatives of Johnson's were in attendance at Friday's ceremony, including Valerie Johnson, a math resources teacher at Woodley Park Elementary.

"When I saw how many names they had to choose from, we really feel honored and privileged to have her name on this school," she said. "She was a very modest person who didn't tell a lot of people about her accomplishments."

Katherine Johnson died last year at the age of 101. In her final years, she saw her accomplishments honored in a number of ways, including receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. In addition, her story was the subject of the book "Hidden Figures," which was made into a motion picture.

"A lot of times, we don't appreciate people until they pass, but it's just a great honor for all brown boys and girls and just all children to know that the impossible is possible," Valerie Johnson said.

Related:

Fairfax City Changes School Name To Honor NASA Mathematician

Fairfax City Votes To Change Name of Lanier Middle School