Philly school celebrates new namesake: Fanny Jackson Coppin

The South Philadelphia school, formerly known as Andrew Jackson Elementary, was officially renamed last June. Community members had pushed for several years to remove the president’s name, part of a nationwide movement to rename schools whose namesakes have racist histories. Jackson owned enslaved people and forcibly removed indigenous people from their land, leading to thousands of deaths. He had no significant connection to Philadelphia.

“Andrew Jackson is not someone we should teach Philadelphia students to honor and admire,” read one petition to rename the school. “He represents the worst of this country’s history of enslavement and genocide.”

More than a thousand school and community members provided input on the new name, choosing from four notable Black figures with Philadelphia ties, including Coppin, abolitionist William Still, civil rights leader Barbara Rose Johns, and former Philadelphia Inquirer editor Acel Moore.

“It’s kinda cool that I’m leaving the school [and] that I helped change the name,” said 8th grader Brandon Lau, who was inspired by Coppin’s trajectory breaking barriers and advocating for education access.

After gaining her freedom in childhood, Coppin attended Oberlin College in Ohio and became one of the first Black women in the U.S. to earn a college degree. During her time as a student, she organized evening classes for formerly enslaved people.

She moved to Philadelphia in 1865 to teach at the Institute for Colored Youth — now Cheyney University — and eventually became head principal.

“It has been fun to work with our teachers, the principal, and families to make this change that is meaningful to help us feel connected and excited about coming to school,” Lau said.

Jeffrey Kuhn, a 6th grade teacher at Coppin, said the years-long renaming process was an important learning experience for students.

“It’s not just something you can flip a switch on,” he said. “A lot of work went into this and a lot of input from the community. You can’t just do this on a whim and say, ‘Oh, we want to change the name of a school.’”

It was powerful for students to understand what it took to rename the school, and to participate in the voting process, Kuhn said.