Photo by Jay Blakesberg
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Jerry Garcia is among the individuals being considered in a new push to rename up to a third of the city’s schools.
After the measure was passed by the SF school board on Jan. 26, the city can move forward on renaming 44 institutions to “reconsider the country’s racist past and eliminate the name of slave owners and colonizers” from schools, including those currently named for former president (and slave-owner) Thomas Jefferson and former SF mayor (and segregationist) Adolph Sutro.
In addition to Garcia – who was born in San Francisco and famously formed the Grateful Dead in the city’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood – former president Barack Obama and poet Maya Angelou are among those name-checked as potential school namesakes.
“This is an opportunity for our students to learn about the history of our school’s names, including the potential new ones,” said school board president Gabriela López in a press statement. “This resolution came to the school board in the wake of the attacks in Charlottesville, and we are working alongside the rest of the country to dismantle symbols of racism and white supremacy culture. I am excited about the ideas schools will come up with.”
Read the full story via the San Francisco Chronicle here.
37 Comments comments associated with this post
Jim
February 4, 2021 at 7:15 pmAnd this is the reason we moved out of Fruit Basket California two years ago. NUTS in office.
You people are sick, erasing our past over a loser druggie. You bunch of p u s s i s e s need to grow up and grow a pair and quit your little tears. All the Real Men are disappearing. Our past is what we learn from. These people of our past, whether good or bad, SHAPED this Country. Hopefully the San Andreas takes out the controlling clowns and leaves the sheep alone.
Jerry Garcia High?
January 31, 2021 at 12:58 pmJerry Garcia is a San Francisco icon. I certainly see the argument for naming a school Jerry Garcia High, however, RENAMING the school is another story. They are moving names like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Paul Revere and Thomas Edison. What the? I love Jerry and I love The Dead, but really? Removing those names for Jerry? WTF is happening here?
Yngwie Malmsteen
January 30, 2021 at 11:33 amHey MIC what’s up? I’m like you and leave my nose hanging out of my mask and troll this music site while being a huge Trace Adkins fan. Let’s compromise and name the music hall in these schools after Jerry Garcia. A true American musical legend, and just name the schools after the town.
Lefty Lucy
January 29, 2021 at 3:05 pmI would be fine sending my kids to Jerry Garcia High School. But I would try to keep them out of the Owsley Stanly chemistry lab.
Baba Louie
January 29, 2021 at 2:59 pmJust for the record, JAMBANDS, The Grateful Dead did not “form” in the Haight. That would be Palo Alto.
spikenyc
January 29, 2021 at 1:51 pmTurn on, Tune in, Drop out!
Jim Fan
January 29, 2021 at 1:08 pmIf a High School can be named after George Steinbrenner (high school in Lutz, FL) one after Jerry, Bob, Brent or Pig would be very appropriate. (Not Phil, he broke up the grate Furthur).
Bobby Bern
January 29, 2021 at 11:02 amBrent Midland HS?
Jim
January 29, 2021 at 11:38 amA big difference between Jerry and Brent as to contributions to music. That’s why Brent isn’t suggested. But Pig High would fit.
TCinNJ
January 29, 2021 at 10:33 amKinda shocked by all the Jerry hate. But i guess nothing is shocking in a world when you can post whatever you want without repercussion. Yes he was a junkie, yes that is part of his legacy. Yes, i would happily, joyfully & enthusiastically support a school named after him. I’ll never know, and don’t really care, but to all who are posting anti Jerry comments, my sincere hope is you never got to see him live.
dubs
January 29, 2021 at 9:57 amCan a country as free as we supposedly are, have the capacity to name some schools after our druggy artistic heroes and others after our slave owning forefathers ?
That’s the country I used to live in. This self righteous sanctimonious wasteland ain’t worth saving.
Jim
January 29, 2021 at 11:35 amYOU live in a country that some fought to stop a holiday named after MLK. It took the NFL threatening to remove the Super Bowl from AZ for them to accept it. Freedom? How about the freedom of a city to name its own schools?
dubs
January 29, 2021 at 11:50 amsome fought ? You mean like Antietam ? or more like some angry people on social media and antifa co-opting anyone else’s anger toward their own ends ? You’ll get the country you deserve, be careful.
Jim
January 29, 2021 at 8:39 amShould we rename the Edgar Allen Poe School in Houston named after him? A known opium user and abuser of alcohol who probably died from them? Also the inventor of the detective story and huge pusher of short stories? Do we stop teaching all artists who used drugs or alcohol? No more Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Byron, Shelly & Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and take all Steven King books out of book stores and libraries because of his admitted coke addiction? Never mind my favorite, William S. Burroughs a long time abuser of drugs and the U of Kansas huge collection of his private papers and works. They should be thrown out?
MIC
January 28, 2021 at 9:52 pmTHE GRATEFUL DEAD SPAWNED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF HEROIN ADDICTS..GREAT LEGACY FOR YOU DEAD SOULS.
Jim
January 29, 2021 at 7:32 amJefferson spawned how many alkies with his noted love of wine and collecting it? Washington probably the richest man when teh country was founded. Why? He was America’s largest distiller. 73yrs old and my supposed DEAD soul is just fine. “Truckin’, I’m a goin’ home, Whoa whoa baby, back where I belong Back home, sit down and patch my bones And get back truckin’ on.” Yeah need to start my 73VW camper bus to keep the battery good this hard New England winter. Bought it for $3,000 offered $16,000 last summer. Let me tell YOU about my 73 Porsche Turbo as to what I paid and it’s now worth.
Humanity has failed
January 28, 2021 at 9:52 pmAnyone bother to take a look at some of the names of the schools that they are currently looking to change because of their ‘racist’ past? Let me give you a hint on one of them.. this man is responsible for the executive order called the emancipation proclamation. You know, the one that freed the slaves.
Charles Place
January 28, 2021 at 8:26 pmNothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.
TCinNJ
January 28, 2021 at 7:37 pmI wish my kids went to Jerry Garcia Elementary School. Instead they went to Franklin. I have nothing against Ben, but i assume he had few Skeleton’s in the Closet as well. JGS would be spectacularly awesome!
mic
January 28, 2021 at 10:00 pmSURE JOHNNY JERRY WAS A DOPEHEAD BUT HIS MUSIC IS SO GREAT IT DOESNT MATTER…..SURE CONTINUE TO LIE TO CHILDREN ABOUT YOUR OWN INSECURITIES AND GROSS GROSS HABITS…ABE WASNT A DOPEHEAD….GEORGE WASNT A DOPEHEAD…..CAL IS JOKE THIS PROVES IT…
Jim
January 29, 2021 at 7:25 amHard luck songs and no happiness? Obviously YOU know little of the DEAD catalogue. Try Sugar Magnolia, Scarlet Begonias, or Till The Morning Comes to educate yourself. How can one of the most popular bands of the last 50 years be an inside job? If they were, so many seem to get it. ” Truckin’, I’m a goin’ home
Whoa whoa baby, back where I belong
Back home, sit down and patch my bones
And get back truckin’ on” Sounds very light and upbeat to me. Sorry YOU missed the fun. So much fun that concerts became a problem.
Dick
January 28, 2021 at 6:04 pmFat addicts start lining up for your day in the sun!
Jams
January 28, 2021 at 6:57 pmAnd cigarettes, ice cream and opiates. They should consider naming a school Issac after your vocabulary! Treating Jerry like a symbol/icon pushed him into isolation and deeper into his demons. My opinion he would have been very against naming a school or anything else after himself, I could be wrong.
Isaac
January 28, 2021 at 7:04 pmNo, I think you’re right. I suspect he would’ve been put off by this. But Jerry is an icon, regardless of how he feels about it, and that very reluctance is, I think, part of what makes Jerry so important. And his iconicity, despite (or perhaps because of) his very human failings, is a positive one. Jerry brought light into a dark world, of course of course of course…
Jams
January 28, 2021 at 7:09 pmWell said
MIC
January 28, 2021 at 10:04 pmITS TOO BAD JERRY DIDNT REALLY SHED ANY LIGHT OR HAPPINESS..ALL DEAD SONGS ARE HARD LUCK SONGS..JERRY IS A KIND FK OFF KINDA GUY….IF YOU LOVE THE DEAD ITS ALWAYS AN INSIDE JOB….THAT YOU DO LOVE IT HOWEVER SIMPLE AND MEANINGLESS IT IS…PROVING FOOLS CHASE MUSIC WHICH IS NOTHING BUT A VIBRATION, DOESNT FEED OR HELP ANYONE BUT YET PEOPLE PUT MUSICIANS IN SOME HEAVENLY CATEGORY…HAHA SUCH KRAP…SUCH KRAP JERRY WAS A WASTE WHO COULD PLAY A BIT.NOTHING MORE NO EXTRA NO GOD NO REAL LOVE JUST A STONER PLAYING DOPE MUSIC….WHICH IS NOTHING BUT A THING..NOT EVEN THAT.
Jams
January 28, 2021 at 5:40 pmJerry was no role model for children, I’ll go out in a limb and say he would be the first to agree. Jerry could live his life due to his generational talent. 99% of us tried to live like him would end up strung out in some parking lot outside of a random arena. Jefferson had flaws but to try and apply today’s values to people 200+ years ago is a slippery slope. Are you seriously comparing questioning the merrits of naming a school after Jerry to anti-semetic comments?
Isaac
January 28, 2021 at 6:33 pmI was comparing my shock, albeit sarcastically, regarding your abject squareness. The anachronism of values (whether slavery or anti-Semiticism) is no reason not to condemn them. In this case, the slope should be slippery. And I’d say Jerry is a decent role model, his own objections notwithstanding. As symbol – and this is a symbolic measure – Jerry stands for risk, beauty, transcendence. Plus, more students should really be losing fingers these days…
Isaac
January 28, 2021 at 4:57 pmSo people are arguing, on jambands.com, that naming a school after Jerry Garcia is *not* cool. Amazing. And I thought the anti-Semitic comments were shocking…
Dizzy
January 28, 2021 at 4:51 pmYeah, but having 4 kids with your slave isn’t a good look either. Just saying.
Ted Furthur
January 28, 2021 at 3:47 pmMany people struggle with addiction and Jerry Garcia was one of them. How about jams focuses on the positives Jerry added to society and especially San Francisco which are many. The grateful dead supported many causes. The rex foundation and seva just to name a couple. This country could use a little more Jerry and the Grateful dead.
Jams
January 28, 2021 at 3:54 pmI’m going to say Thomas Jefferson added a bit more to society than Jerry…
Jim
January 29, 2021 at 7:14 amThere is room enough for both Jerry and Thomas. many schools are named for locals who are not even remembered who they were by now. Its not an either-or situation. Jerry had a big influence on society and is remembered. Never mind his connection to Frisco. He played and honored many famous black tunes and didn’t keep any slaves.
Gratitude
January 28, 2021 at 7:57 pmThank you, Ted. Yes, we agree. There were members of the Beatles who made a personal decision to self-medicate, and their legacy is still respected and honored in Liverpool. Jerry Garcia was a genius, and he contributed significantly to society as an artist, musician, and humanitarian. Jerry is a cultural icon of San Francisco.
Jams
January 28, 2021 at 3:11 pmNaming a school after a junkie?
bob p's sitting down
January 29, 2021 at 1:40 pmIt’s San Fran, makes sense. Just watch your step as that’s not dog poo.
David Rubin
January 28, 2021 at 2:40 pmCaptain Trips Elementary School?