Families at Brent Elementary School (301 North Carolina Ave. SE) are moving to rename their school in honor of local civil rights activist Gardner Bishop.
It would be the second elementary school to be renamed on the Hill. The school once known as John Tyler Elementary School became Shirley Chisholm in 2024.
Who was Bishop?
Gardner LaClede Bishop was a barber, parent and civil rights activist who formed the Consolidated Parents Group. That group led a boycott of Browne Junior High School, an overcrowded and segregated school then located in Kingman Park.
Gardner had never been to a PTA meeting prior to his organization. But his daughter was at Browne when Principal W.B. Stinson asked Gardner to organize the families to fundraise for an organ for the school. “The people will follow you,” Gardner remembered Stinson saying in a 1987 interview with the William A. Elwood Civil Rights Lawyers Project. That was the beginning of his involvement.
Gardner L. Bishop speaks to interviewers with the William A. Elwood Civil Rights Lawyers Project in July 1987. Click to watch on the University of Virginia site. All Rights to owners.
Deliberately instigating a case to challenge segregated schools with attorney James Nabrit, Gardner attempted to enroll 9 children living in the Frederick Douglass Project at Sousa Junior High School. The students were refused enrollment, but Gardner went on a tour of the school. “It was beautiful,” he said, describing the music room. “I had never seen anything like that before.”
That effort resulted in the 1954 court case Bolling vs Sharpe which, decided at the same time as Brown vs Board of Education, found that the racial segregation of District schools was unconstitutional.
Community members from Robert Brent Elementary (301 North Carolina Ave. SE) asked Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6B to send a resolution to DC Council in support of their proposal to rename the school for Bishop.
Brent community member Andrew Pratt said in a letter to the ANC that staff and caregivers had reached out to hundreds of students and community members to review dozens of names to select one of an individual who embodies local history and school values, being brave empathetic active and responsible “as our school undergoes renovation now is the time for this name change.”
The 1968 Brent Elementary building is currently being demolished and a new school built on the site with a planned opening in fall 2027. Students are currently being bussed to swing space at Meyer Elementary (2501 11th St. NW).
History
Brent School was established on the site of a previous school in 1883. The school is currently named for Robert Brent, the first Mayor of Washington DC, in office from 1802-1811. He led the city when DC Council passed Black Codes restricting the movement of non-white citizens in public space, including a requirement to carry identification as well as a curfew.
Brent also owned the Aquia Creek Quarry in Northern Virginia, which he sold to the federal government in 1791 but continued to run on their behalf, using enslaved labor.
ANC 6B first supported a resolution in favor of a name change for Brent and what was then Tyler Elementary in 2020. In the same month the ANC passed the renaming resolution, Mayor Muriel Bowser created the DC Facilities and Commemorative Expressions (DC FACES) Working Group, tasked with evaluating named public spaces and recommending actions –either removing, renaming or contextualizing buildings, public spaces or monuments.
In 2020, the Working Group recommended a list of 19 schools that should be renamed to reflect contemporary values, based on the first condition that disqualifies an honor: that the person it is named after was an enslaver of people. Three Hill schools were on the list: Robert Brent Elementary, John Tyler Elementary and John Walker Maury Elementary. As noted, Tyler became Shirley Chisholm Elementary in January 2024. Maury initiated the renaming process in 2018, but it was not completed.
Pratt said that Chisholm parent and organizer Aaron Kershaw provided invaluable support as Brent began the process at the end of the 2023-24 school year. There were some differences in the two school cutures and so in the unique process followed by each, Pratt said. But Kershaw provided a step-by-step understanding of the process. “He wrote the playbook that I think we could, turn over in some version to another school that wanted to do the same kind of project,” Pratt said.
An Example for Students
Although background work on the renaming began in 2023-24, the process kicked off in earnest this year, as the school’s Equity and Inclusion Group (EIG), which Pratt co-faciitates, conducted a survey.
By early March, the school community recommended 57 names. The committee later narrowed the list down to eight, using critera for honorary naming in DC Code (i.e., the person must be deceased) and assessing how the individual alligned with Brent values: being Brave, Empathetic, Active and Responsible (why the students are “Brent Bears’). Faculty narrowed that list down to two candidates, Bishop and artist Elizabeth Catlett.
The final decision was put to a vote, but not before Brent early childhood educator Jon Berg had created curriculum for each candidate to facilitate age-approriate discussion in each grade level. Then, students, staff, caregivers, alumni and community members all voted. The result: Bishop: 378, Catlett: 339.
Pratt said the vote showed how much excitement there was for both candidates. “So that close vote, I took that as a sign that we had two really great finalist names,” Pratt said, “and either one of them would have been fantastic namesake for the school.”
And once the community began the process, it moved quickly. Pratt cited parents, staff, students and particularly his EIG Megan Brackett and Leticia Rojas as well as Brent Principal Norah Lycknell for their support. “We had a strong community of committed people who believe this is one, one small step on making creating an inclusive an inclusive school,” he said adding that the commitee had “direct, positive and encouraging” engagement with DCPS as they worked.
ANC 6B Vice Chair Mareino said that the Brent community had done an excellent job of selecting the name of an illustrious but not nationally famous person who could be held up as an example for students.
But at the ANC meeting, neighbor Jan Schoonmaker, who identified himself as a 50-year neighbor of the school, said he thought renaming was “a ridiculous idea”. He said the school was a key part of the neighborhood and asked the ANC to leave the school alone, calling changing names “a waste of time.”
The ANC unanimously voted in support. The renaming must be approved by DC Council. Councilmember Charles Allen (D) introduced legislation Sept. 23 that would make the renaming official.
Allen wrote in the letter accompanying the bill that compared to Brent, “I agree with the community that Gardner Bishop is a modern and appropriate namesake, as he was an exceptional role model and better represents the values of the school community.”
The legislation is expected to have its final vote as early as January 2026, well in time for DC Public Schools (DCPS) to begin work on “Gardner Bishop Elementary School” signs for the new building before it opens in August 2027.
An earlier version of this story used a photo from the Brent @ Meyer swing space. The Hill Rag regrets any confusion.
