Magruder Students Petition for School Name Change

Students at Colonel Zadok Magruder High School in Derwood are petitioning the Montgomery County Board of Education to change their school name after discovering their namesake was a slaveowner.

The petition comes a little over a week after Richard Montgomery High School students launched a similar initiative that garnered over 3,100 signatures.

“Our high school was named for him because he commanded a Maryland militia in the Revolutionary War,” the change.org petition reads. “But now that we know that he shackled black people, let’s rename our school after a non slaver.”

https://twitter.com/neanderthalian/status/1274312129278025729

Col. Zadok Magruder led a Maryland militia during the American Revolutionary War and helped establish Montgomery County. He owned at least 26 slaves, according to census records from 1790.

An MCPS review of school names in 2019 found that at least four additional county schools are named after slaveowners, including Montgomery Blair High School, Francis Scott Key Middle School, Thomas S. Wootton High School, and Col. E. Brooke Lee Middle School.

As of press time, the Magruder High School petition had over 390 signatures.

About Samantha Subin

Samantha Subin was a summer 2020 intern with Montgomery Community Media. At the time she was a rising senior at the University of Maryland, majoring in Multiplatform Journalism with a minor in General Business. Follow her on Twitter @samantha_subin

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