WAUKEGAN (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Waukegan will be getting a name change July 1.
The Waukegan school board voted Tuesday night to rename Thomas Jefferson Middle School after late Georgia Congressman John Lewis.
Lake County NAACP President Sandra Leconte advocated for the name Barack Obama to replace Thomas Jefferson’s on a middle school in Waukegan.
"Thomas Jefferson didn’t pay his slaves. There’s nothing you can tell us that’s honorable about Thomas Jefferson, as African-Americans," she said.
Even though a couple of black Waukegan school board members pushed Barack and Michelle Obama’s name, arguing the late statesman and civil rights leader John Lewis was too unknown to people, board member Rick Riddle argued for Lewis.
"John Lewis just passed away. We all knew John Lewis. John Lewis suffered under injustice in our society much greater than the Obamas did," he said.
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In the end, the John Lewis name won out.
The board also voted to rename the Daniel Webster Middle School for local civil rights activist Edith Smith.
Jefferson, who was the nation's third president, owned slaves. Webster was a former senator who supported slavery.
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