Residents of Brookline have voted to rename the elementary school once attended by John F. Kennedy because it was named for a former slave owner.
Town meeting members voted Tuesday 171-19 to change the name of the Edward Devotion School.
It will be known as the Coolidge Corner School, after its neighborhood, until a new name can be approved at next spring’s town meeting.
Deborah Brown, who proposed the change, said, “No child should have to walk into a school named for someone who enslaved people.”
Opponents called the name change an empty gesture that does not address racism’s underlying causes.
Devotion, who died in 1744, left money to the town on the condition it is used for a school.
The future president attended from kindergarten through third grade.
