RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - A movement is growing to remove the name of Virginia's foremost defender of school segregation from a Richmond-era middle school.
Harry F. Byrd was Virginia's leading political figure from the 1920s through the 1960s.
But some parents and students, along with African-Americans who once attended segregated schools, are asking a suburban Richmond school board to erase Byrd's name from the building. The Henrico County school board could act as soon as Thursday.
At public meetings, name-change proponents argued that a man who fought to keep black children out of classrooms with white children should not have a school named after him.
Name-change opponents say the petitioners are trying to erase history, and that Byrd reflected his times.
Byrd served as state senator, governor and U.S. senator. He died in 1966.