Dear editor,

This letter is in response to Mr. Elton Ralston’s comments in his letter to the Times-Journal on Tuesday, May 27.

Mr. Ralston, were you not aware that there was much work done during the building of the new high school and prior to its opening to try and have it named back to Albert G. Parrish?

John D. Coon Jr. and Mrs. Jean Martin were two of the folks who were at the forefront of this work. They, Molly H. Lockhart, and I, and perhaps a few other former graduates of Parrish High, attended the Selma City School Board meeting where we made our appeal and found out what had been done.

It was decided since there had been many graduates under the Selma High name, it would not revert back to the former name. However, in order to remember Mr. Parrish, the concrete archway and facade, with Albert G. Parrish High School engraved there, was kept intact and placed very tastefully in the media center of the new school. Basically, this remembrance is right in the middle of the school for all to see.

There is something we wanted to have done which has not been, however. That is to place a plaque on the wall inside or outside the Media Center that tells who Albert G. Parrish was. The fact the school retained its name of Selma High is understandable. There were no graduates from Westside Jr. High, so the name reverting back to R.B. Hudson did not matter. The graduates of Parrish are aging as you and I well know. The graduates of Selma High are younger and so the name remained. However, I still stand on the idea that came to me to rename Selma High for Amelia Boynton in order to honor her all over the state and country, not just in Selma.

The world will never know there is a street or part of one, named for Amelia Boynton, but if the local school bore her name, it would shine forth in many places and on many future diplomas.

I do wish the school board would consider this change. There are plenty of schools in Alabama bearing the name Carver. However, no high school to my knowledge bears the name of one of the 1960s civil rights workers. Mrs. Boynton would be well remembered by naming the school in Selma for her.

Gail Ingram

Valley Grande