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County In Georgia Votes To Rename School After Michelle Obama

County In Georgia Votes To Rename School After Michelle Obama

An elementary school in Georgia is getting named, this time after First Lady Michelle Obama.

The Clayton County Board of Education voted last week to rename the South Clayton Elementary School to Michelle Obama STEM Elementary School.

“I just felt like there aren’t many places named after women,” school board member Ophelia Burroughs said to CNN. “We are trying to push forward in our society, because we have been left behind for so long.”

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The school is set to open in July of next year in Jonesboro. They are awaiting Michelle Obama’s approval to have the school named in her honor. At the board meeting last week, Obama’s name received 7 votes compared to naming the school after Georgia representative John Lewis, who passed earlier this year.

“He is a true hero of the civil rights movement, and it would have been so fitting at this time,” board member Judy Johnson, who did not vote in favor of Obama, told CNN. “But we had many, many votes for Michelle Obama. It is very fitting to have a school named after her here.”

It is unsure whether it is coincidental, but Michelle Obama actually has ties to Clayton County through her great-great grandmother. Back in 2009, the New York Times traced Obama’s ancestry back to Melvania Shields. Shields was enslaved on a farm in Rex, Georgia, a tiny part of Clayton County.