Name change? NAACP takes aim at Charles B. Aycock High school
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on November 8, 2015 3:05 AM
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The Goldsboro/Wayne Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is calling for the removal of Charles B. Aycock's name from C.B. Aycock High School in northern Wayne County.
Branch president Sylvia Barnes said the association is calling for the change because of the former governor's role in the Wilmington Race Riots on Nov. 10, 1898.
"We're worried that people aren't being told the whole story about Charles B. Aycock, and his involvement in the race riots -- that's history, you know, people should know about that," Mrs. Barnes said.
Mrs. Barnes said the NAACP is pursuing the matter now because the organization has received inquiries from NAACP members and the community recently about why Aycock's name remains on the high school.
"Anytime we pursue an issue like this, we wait until we get inquiries from our members, from the community, about an issue and then we pursue it," she said.
Aycock's name has been removed from buildings around the state, including buildings at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, but remains on the northern Wayne County high school, Mrs. Barnes said.
"If other places including UNC and Duke have removed his name, the question we have is why are other places removing his name and we aren't doing the same thing here?" she said.
Mrs. Barnes said the NAACP plans to organize an effort to get Aycock's name removed from the high school.
"We're just going to talk about it, have more meetings and get signatures on a petition that we'll present to the school board calling for his name to be removed," Mrs. Barnes said.
Wayne County Public Schools officials said they were limited in what they could say on the matter, since none had been notified or included in the grassroots effort to remove Aycock's name from the high school being led by the NAACP.
Superintendent of schools Dr. Michael Dunsmore referenced some of his efforts in recent weeks toward developing a strategic plan for the district. The sessions have been held at each of the six county high schools.
"Since taking this position in July, I have sought input regarding our school district and the future of our district from many groups and organizations across Wayne County, including the NAACP," he said. "At this point, the district has not received any information from any groups seeking to have Charles B. Aycock High School renamed, making it very difficult to gauge what level of interest there might be locally for this to occur."
Board of Education Chairman Chris West said he learned about the effort earlier in the week after reading an online news article on the issue.
"It's not been brought to my attention by anybody," he said. "We have not even discussed it as a board. I have not been contacted by anybody, period."
West said he had no immediate reaction, as there has been no formal request made about removing Aycock's name from the school by the NAACP to the school board.
"To my knowledge, I don't know of any schools that have been renamed for any reason. I don't know the process, the procedures because we have never been placed in this situation," he said Thursday. "To be honest, I have really given it no thought because right now, nobody's been to the school system or the board about changing the name of any school."
He said the school board is responsive when formally addressed about issues and concerns.
"Every citizen has the same rights as anyone to address the board," he said. "There's very specific things they can talk about, things they can't talk about."
Calls to Dr. Earl Moore, C.B. Aycock principal since 2007, requesting comment on the matter were not returned.
Ken Derksen, director of communication services with the district, indicated that he had spoken with the principal.
"I am not sure how much he can really say, as he has not received any information either about a push to remove Aycock's name from the school," Derksen said. "And as he told me, his focus remains primarily on the education and safety of his students."
This is not, however, the first time the issue about Aycock's segregationist leanings has been addressed.
The state's education governor came under fire in 2007 when Richard Moore, state treasurer and gubernatorial candidate, became very vocal on the topic.
That October, in a letter to the state Democratic Party chairman, Richard Moore asked that Aycock's name be dropped from the party's annual Vance-Aycock dinner because of the contradiction between the former governor's views and attitudes on race. The topic drew responses from across the state, including the local school district.
In a News-Argus story published on Oct. 5, 2207, Dean Sauls, then-county director of secondary education, said that Aycock's segregationist history was not hidden and had been something students and their parents have come to learn from in recent years.
Dr. Moore, in the same story, was quoted as suggesting that harping on the school's namesake served no purpose.
"I think the flaws are really irrelevant," he said at the time. "All of us are human and are capable of error, and if we focus on the mistakes, we'll never move forward. Students come to this place to learn. We help them learn from their mistakes, and the same is true in life."