The late Chicago baseball legend Minnie Miñoso was also called “Mr. White Sox” and the “Cuban Comet.” Now he can be identified, too, for a South Side faculty that newly bears his identify.
Minnie Miñoso Academy — the constructing previously referred to as George McClellan Elementary, positioned just some blocks west of Sox ballpark Guaranteed Rate Field — was celebrated Thursday with a back-to-school bash forward of opening day in Chicago Public Schools on Monday. Miñoso’s son, Charlie Rice-Miñoso, and Sox mascot Southpaw have been amongst these readily available to welcome households to the re-christened campus.
Miñoso was Chicago’s first Black main league participant when he joined the staff in 1951 — homering off a Yankees pitcher his first time at bat in Comiskey Park — and was one of many sport’s first Afro-Latino stars. The Hall of Famer was a multi-season all-star who spent a part of 12 seasons with the Sox and in addition performed for the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Cardinals and Washington Senators after three seasons within the Negro Leagues. He died in 2015.
The constructing bearing his identify is amongst three in CPS which can be starting the brand new faculty 12 months with new monikers. The others are Daisy Bates Academy of Social Justice, previously Caldwell Academy of Math & Science, and Monarcas Academy, previously Enrico Tonti Elementary.
CPS stated it labored with households, lecturers and college students to give you names that “better reflect the community and its values.”
It’s half of a bigger effort to rid Illinois’ largest faculty district of campuses named after individuals who have been slaveholders or are in any other case thought of problematic by trendy requirements. McClellan, for instance, was a politician and a commanding basic for the U.S. Army in the course of the Civil War, however whereas he fought on the Union facet, he largely opposed the abolition of slavery.
CPS additionally just lately renamed Daniel Boone Elementary to Mosaic School of Fine Arts. Boone, a pioneer and frontiersman who died in 1820, was lengthy seen as a people hero, however his legacy has been reconsidered as a result of he was a slave proprietor and due to his therapy of Indigenous folks. CPS’ fairness workplace decided him to be a “historically egregious figure.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com