Beman middle school right path forward

I support the renaming our new middle school after the Beman family. I ask the community to consider the needs of both our current and future students in this information age, where histories of buildings and monuments can be researched in an instant, especially in the light of the current Black Lives Matter movement.

Honoring the Beman family for their work to improve the lives of the Black community is the right path forward for Middletown.

My involvement in this initiative began in the spring of 2019, when the Board of Education asked the community for input on a new name for the middle school.

With no initial notions of whom to nominate for this honor, I turned to Google. A quick keyword search for women of color, history and Middletown led me to find Clarissa Beman, who in 1834 was one of the founders of Middletown’s Colored Female Anti-Slavery Society. This group was a first for Middletown, and one of the earliest women’s abolitionist societies in the United States.

From that point on, my knowledge of the family grew to learn that four generations of Bemans worked toward liberty and equality.

It still confounds my mind that I had not learned about them sooner when I was at Middletown Public School in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The future of all students who attend Middletown Public Schools is brighter each and every day this community works towards dismantling structural racism. Our country was founded on the notion of liberty and justice for all, and we owe a significant debt of gratitude to the Bemans and other Black activists who fought to make these words true.

I ask for your support Aug. 3 when the Common Council takes its final vote on the matter.

Molly Aunger, Middletown