The name of the consolidated Henry Clay and John M. Gandy elementary schools in Ashland seemed like a settled matter.
In 2018, a consensus was reached to retain the Gandy name on the new building, to open during the 2024-25 school year on the current Gandy campus. This was a nod to the historical significance of Gandy, which opened in 1950 to accommodate Black Hanover County students during a school segregation era that was long on “separate” but short on “equal.”
Henry Clay and John M. Gandy students dig their shovels into the ground of what will become their new consolidated elementary school and are joined by Town of Ashland, county, school division and project officials along with representatives of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors and School Board.
The school — named for a longtime Virginia State University president — was the first in Hanover to provide Black students with central heating and indoor plumbing. When a new Gandy Elementary was built, the original Gandy would become the headquarters of Hanover County Public Schools.
A year ago, after the Ashland Town Council cleared way for construction to begin, Hanover School Superintendent Michael Gill seemed to put the naming matter to rest in a March 22 article in the Mechanicsville Local.
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Standing view of the front entrance of the new John M. Gandy Elementary School.
“The school board had already voted some years back that the name John M. Gandy would be retained,” Gill said. “You see that in the renderings that the name will stay with the site so it will be John M. Gandy.”
But Hanover has become the place where consensus goes to die.
What were once unambiguous renderings and county documents on a new Gandy Elementary shifted. Tuesday, the board’s agenda included an item that would establish a committee — one person chosen from each School Board district — to make recommendations on a new name for the consolidated Ashland elementary school.
Henry Clay Elementary School is set to be consolidated with John M. Gandy Elementary. The new school, being built on the Gandy Elementary site, is planned to be finished for the 2024-25 school year.
For Gandy alumna Sandra Howard, this gambit is tantamount to a done deal, given the political leanings of the board.
Howard graduated from what was then Gandy High School in 1968, the last year before Hanover desegregated. She was planning to attend Tuesday night’s School Board meeting and speak her mind.
“That’s our history,” said Howard, who met her husband in first grade at Gandy and went all the way through the school with him. “When I look back, I know my character started at John M. Gandy. That man had a good name.”
Board Chair John F. Axselle III said in an email Tuesday that while the board reached a consensus on the Gandy name in 2018, no vote was taken.
John M. Gandy Elementary School in Ashland is included in a long-term plan of rebuilding.
“Since that time, as you know, there has been turnover among board members and this topic has been brought forward again in recent months and discussed publicly during our meetings as we continue with the construction of the new school,” he said.
In an email to a school employee Monday, Axselle said the board was “adhering to our own longstanding policy — School Board Policy 4-3.8 — that we are obligated to uphold. As the construction of this new school combines two schools into one, our policy requires us to name this new school building,” Axselle wrote in an email to a school employee. “As stated in the policy, this new school building cannot be ‘named for a person (living or deceased).’ Additionally, this policy (originally adopted in August 2000) does not distinguish between newly built or existing schools, so the School Board may decide to change the name of a school at any time.”
“That’s a kind of bad faith argument,” said Rachel Levy, an Ashland resident who has served on PTAs at both Clay and Gandy. “It’s not a new school. It’s a new school building.” She called the move by the board “retribution for the Confederate school name changes.”
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Tuesday, Axselle said the board was not retaliating, but was merely following school district policy.
The School Board — or more accurately, a previous iteration of it — renamed Lee-Davis High School and Stonewall Jackson Middle School in 2020 after our moment of racial reckoning could no longer countenance the spectacle of Black students attending schools named for men who waged a war against the Union to perpetuate the enslavement of Black people. The decision did not sit well with some supervisors in a county where school board members are appointed rather than elected. School board members who supported the removal of Confederate names on the schools were systematically removed and replaced with more stridently conservative members.
Black students once had to bypass Clay to attend Gandy. Now the schools effectively operate as one Ashland elementary school with two separate campuses. Clay — named for the Hanover native who represented Kentucky in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate — houses students from pre-kindergarten through second grade; Gandy, students third through fifth grades. Both schools have a tiger mascot.
The policy Axselle cited is “for facilities yet unnamed,” making his rationale a bit of a stretch for a new building that would consolidate Gandy students on their current campus. If the school had been destroyed by fire and rebuilt where it stood — like Richmond’s Fox Elementary — would the board feel compelled to rename it?
The policy also charges the board to take “historical considerations” into account. And here lies the most compelling reason to leave the Gandy name on the school.
Gandy was an anchor of Berkleytown, a Black community north of downtown Ashland built to accommodate the segregation laws of the time. Absorbed into Ashland in 1977, it recently was placed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places. This would constitute yet another erasure of Black history.
And here, let me lay to rest the false equivalency that the sacrificing of the Gandy name is a just and equitable response to the removal of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson from school buildings.
Gandy, whose parents were enslaved, was a victim of the ideology that those Confederates sought to preserve. Born a mere five years after Emancipation, Gandy somehow rose above his humble origins to become an educator and the leader of a college. No student of any hue or nationality should feel anything but pride at attending a school that bears his name.
“All I can say is that they are bringing a divisive issue up that should not be,” said Pat Hunter-Jordan, president of the Hanover NAACP. “If the name had just remained as was promised the community, this would not be another issue that this board is creating.”
There is no compelling reason, other than spite, for this board to change course. It needs to keep the Gandy name on the new building.
From the archives: In 1960, The Richmond 34 were arrested during a sit-in at the Thalhimers lunch counter
Demonstrators are arrested and charged with trespassing at Thalhimers department store on Feb. 22, 1960. Those arrested would not leave after being refused service at a tearoom and a lunch counter.
Crowd inside Thalhimers department store the day of demonstration and arrests. Photo was not published. Photo taken Feb. 22, 1960. Was received by Times-Dispatch library on February 23, 1960
The Rev. Frank Pinkston, a 23-year-old Baptist ministerial student from Silver Springs, Fla., is arrested and charged with trespassing at Thalhimers department store on Feb. 22, 1960. Those arrested would not leave after being refused service at a tearoom and a lunch counter.
Crowd at city lock-up after 34 demonstrators were arrested and charged with trespassing at Thalhimers department store. Those arrested would not leave after being refused service at a tearoom and a lunch counter.
Front page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch from Feb. 23, 1960. An article about arrests at the Thalhimers sit-in is in the bottom right corner.
The story that ran on the Feb. 23, 1960 front page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Page 4 of the Richmond Times-Dispatch from Tuesday, February 23, 1960.
Photo from page 4 of the Richmond Times-Dispatch from Feb. 23, 1960.
Published caption: "Mounted and K-9 Squad Policemen Break Up Crowd at Lock-Up After Arrests"
Thalhimers picket and protest
Thalhimers picket and protest.
Thalhimers picket and protest
LeRoy Bray arrested at Thalhimers department store as students from Virginia Union University attempt to get service in whites-only dining areas.
Frank Pinkston, lower right, at Thalhimers department store, outside the Richmond Room, Feb. 22, 1960, in an attempt to be seated in segregated dining areas.
Protest at Thalhimers department store in downtown Richmond as Virginia Union University students attempted to get served in whites-only dining areas. Dr. Marshall Banks is at left, against the wall. Cornell Moore is behind him.
Pickets outside Thalhimers department store in downtown Richmond as Virginia Union University students attempted to get served in whites-only dining areas.
Pickets outside Thalhimers department store in downtown Richmond as Virginia Union University students attempted to get served in whites-only dining areas.
Frank Pinkston, lower right, at Thalhimers department store, outside the Richmond Room, Feb. 22, 1960, in an attempt to be seated in segregated dining areas.
Protest at Thalhimers department store in downtown Richmond as Virginia Union University students attempted to get served in whites-only dining areas.
Protest at Thalhimers department store in downtown Richmond as Virginia Union University students attempted to get served in whites-only dining areas.
Thalhimers picket and protest.
Elizabeth Johnson Rice was the speaker of the "Civil Rights Day of Remembrance" at the former Thalhimers Department Store on Broad Street on Sunday, February 22, 2004. Rice returned to Richmond to commemorate the 44th anniversary of their protest over lunch counter segregation.
Viewers stand under umbrellas on Feb. 22, 2010 during the unveiling of a marker commemorating the Thalhimers sit-in and the Richmond 34.
Elizabeth Thalhimer-Smartt (left) and Elizabeth Johnson-Rice pull back the cover over a marker commemorating the Thalhimers sit-in and the Richmond 34 on Feb. 22, 2010.
Rev. Leroy M. Bray, Jr. photographed Wed. Feb. 10, 2010 in Richmond. Mr. Bray was one of 34 VUU students arrested for defying segregation and will be speaking at 50th anniversary events.
Elizabeth Johnson Rice, one of the 34 VUU students arrested in 1960 lunch-counter sit-in at Thalhimers.
Elizabeth Johnson Rice in her VUU yearbook photo
Del. Mamye E. BaCote, D-Newport News, center, received a standing ovation during the floor session of the House of Delegates in Richmond on Monday, Feb. 22, 2010. BaCote had just revealed that she was one of the "Richmond 34" who staged a sit-in at the all-white Thalhimers lunch room when she was a student at Virginia Union University.
Ford T. Johnson of Maryland unveils the historical marker commemorating the "Richmond 34," a group of mostly 34 Virginia Union University students arrested during a sit-in at the Thalhimers department store. Johnson, who is one of the 34, was accompanied by three others who took part in the sit-in: (from left): Johnson's sister, Elizabeth Johnson Rice; Raymond B. Randolph Jr. of Farmington Hills, Michigan (third from left); and Wendell Foster of Richmond (fourth from left). The unveiling took place along Broad Street, between 6th and 7th streets on June 28, 2016.
Elizabeth Johnson Rice speaks during the unveiling of an historical marker commemorating the 1960 "Richmond Sit-In" of 34 Virginia Union University students at the Thalhimers department store lunchroom. Rice is one of the 34 students who took part in the sit-in. The ceremony took place on Broad Street between 6th and 7th Streets. June 28, 2016.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, right, welcomed the Rev. Leroy M. Bray, Jr., left, and his wife, Cynthia, center to the Executive Mansion in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. They were part of a group of black leaders, some of whom were members of the Richmond 34, who stages a sit-in at Thalhimers lunch counter in 1960.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, right, talks with Rev. Dr. Claude Perkins, left, and his wife Cheryl, center, inside the Executive Mansion in Richmond, on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. They were part of a group of black leaders, some of whom were members of the Richmond 34, who staged a sit-in at Thalhimers lunch counter in 1960.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, left,, welcomed Dr. Roland Moore, right, and his wife, Blanche, center, to the Executive Mansion in Richmond, VA Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. They were part of a group of black leaders, some of whom were members of the Richmond 34, who staged a sit-in at Thalhimers lunch counter in 1960.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, left, welcomed, from left, retired judge Birdie Hairston Jamison, Dr. Anderson J. Franklin and Elizabeth Rice to the Executive Mansion in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. They were part of a group of black leaders, some of whom were members of the Richmond 34, who staged a sit-in at Thalhimers lunch counter in 1960. Franklin and Rice were two of the original 34.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, center, welcomed black leaders and some members of the Richmond 34 to the Executive Mansion in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. They were part of a group of black leaders, some of whom were members of the Richmond 34, who staged a sit-in at Thalhimer's lunch counter in 1960.
Virginia First Lady Pam Northam, left, watches as her husband, Governor Ralph Northam, right, talks with Rev. Dr. Claude Perkins, center left, and his wife Cheryl, center right, inside the Executive Mansion in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. The Perkins were part of a group of black leaders, visiting the Mansion, some of whom were members of the Richmond 34, who staged a sit-in at Thalhimers lunch counter in 1960.
Rev. Dr. Claude Perkins, left, and his wife Cheryl, second from left, talk with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and First Lady Pam Northam inside the Executive Mansion in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. The Perkins were part of a group of black leaders, visiting the Mansion, some of whom were members of the Richmond 34, who staged a sit-in at Thalhimers lunch counter in 1960.
Elizabeth Johnson Rice, center, surrounded by lawmakers and several other original members of the Richmond 34, were honored by the House of Delegates inside the State Capitol in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. The Richmond 34 staged a sit-in at Thalhimers lunch room in 1960.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, center, welcomed black leaders and some members of the Richmond 34 to the Executive Mansion in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. They were part of a group of black leaders, some of whom were members of the Richmond 34, who staged a sit-in at Thalhimers lunch counter in 1960.
Del. Delores McQuinn, D-Richmond, left, stands with Elizabeth Johnson Rice, center, surrounded by several other original members of the Richmond 34, from left, Dr. Anderson J. Franklin, Rev. Leroy M. Bray, Jr. and Wendell Foster, pose after they were honored by the House of Delegates inside the State Capitol in Richmond on Friday, Feb. 22, 2019. The Richmond 34 staged a sit-in at Thalhimers lunch room in 1960.
