For decades, a Berkeley elementary school has carried the name of a prominent conservationist and co-founder of the Sierra Club.
But that 19th century geologist, Joseph LeConte, was also a slave owner and munitions supplier to the Confederacy during the Civil War, and parents want his name off their children’s school.
The Berkeley school board honored that request Wednesday evening, voting to strip the LeConte name off the school and launch a process to select a new moniker.
The decision follows similar ones across the state to remove the names of those with pasts stained by racism. Palo Alto last year rebranded two schools that were named after men who supported eugenics, the belief that selective breeding and sterilization can improve the human race.
The vote in Berkeley follows a months-long process initiated by community members to rename the south Berkeley school that included meetings, straw polls and conversations about LeConte’s record...
In 1892, when the school was named, LeConte was a renowned professor at UC Berkeley, joining the faculty after the Civil War...
LeConte still has a waterfall, canyon, glacier and mountain named after him in addition to schools and university buildings, including one at UC Berkeley...
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