Kendra Yoshinaga
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON– (WMAL) Some Ballou Senior High School alumni are resisting a proposal to rename the Southeast D.C. school after former mayor Marion Barry.

Barry would have turned 80 this year, and city officials are thinking up ways to honor the so-called “Mayor for Life.”

“Change something else,” says Sandra Seegars, a Ballou alumna and former Ward 8 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner. Instead of renaming Ballou, Seegars says, the city should name the new all boys’ school in Ward 7 after Barry.

Since it opened in 1960, the high school has been named after Dr. Frank Ballou, who served as D.C.’s school superintendent between 1920 and 1943. Advocates of the name change refer to Ballou as a “staunch segregationist” in their petition, citing his role in barring the African-American singer Marian Anderson from performing in the auditorium of what is now Cardozo High School. At the time, in 1939, the high school was designated whites-only.

Seegars defends Ballou’s decision, saying he was simply following the law.

“Just like today, if you don’t like the law, you wouldn’t break it. You would just change it.”

Alumni opposed to the name change will meet at Ballou tonight to organize their efforts.