I call for the name of Nottoway Intermediate School to be changed back to Luther H. Foster School.

The school building, located in Crewe, Va., originally was dedicated on June 6, 1950, and named Luther H. Foster High School in memory of Dr. Foster, who was president of Virginia State University from 1943 until his death in July 1949. He had served as business manager of the university for many years before his appointment as president.

Luther H. Foster High School housed Black students for two decades, from 1950 to 1970, but his name was never put on the building.

Once the Nottoway schools were integrated in 1970, the name Nottoway High School was placed on the front of the building because the county thought that white students deserved better.

The building is now Nottoway Intermediate School.

I believe it was a racist refusal of Nottoway Public Schools to put the name of a Black man on the school. Black students had to live with attending a school building with no name on it. We were teased about going to a no-name school.

Feeling the pain, we raised the funds to put his name on when it was Nottoway High School, but the school system refused to do it.

I want the Nottoway County Public Schools to provide reparations for the disrespect it perpetrated against Dr. Foster, his family and Black students who went to that school by changing the name back to Luther H. Foster.

For former and current Black students, this is a reminder of the South’s past. The name needs to be changed.

Every year when Black freshmen stepped on to their high school campus, they were denied equity and inclusion.

I attended Luther H. Foster High School. It had no gymna- sium and a limited curriculum. But by the grace of God, I still excelled.

After graduating in 1958, I went to St. Paul’s College and earned a B.S. in business, graduated from Howard University with a M.A. in public school administration, from the University of the District of Columbia with a M.A. in curriculum development and did doctoral work at George Washington University.

I also am a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and the Luther H. Foster Alumni Association.

I am still a property owner and taxpayer in Nottoway County.

I think deep, meaningful conversation can start that healing process of reconciliation, along with changing the school’s name back to the original — Luther H. Foster.

CHRISTINE DAVIS EASTERLING

Silver Spring, Md.