School that honors Virginia segregationist could be renamed

A precocious child with a good grasp of history, the 10-year-old asked her, "Grandma, why do I have to go to a school that was named after a racist who didn't want black people in the building?"

In an era when historical figures are being re-examined for their racial views, Byrd — Virginia's most towering political icon of the mid-20th century — could be on the fast-track to infamy.

A whole generation of African-American baby boomers in Virginia felt the sting of Byrd's stubborn resistance to school integration in the 1950s and beyond.

[...] they are among the parents and community members who want the name Harry Flood Byrd School stripped from a middle school building, letterhead and athletic uniforms.

[...] for many, he is best known as the architect of Massive Resistance, Virginia's response to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racially segregated public schools.

Byrd denounced the ruling as an "unwarranted usurpation of power."

Because of Massive Resistance, white schools that faced the prospect of integration were closed, and black-only schools were woefully underfunded.