HOUSTON – Houston Independent School District’s Board of Education unanimously approved renaming Jack Yates Field to George Perry Floyd Jr. Athletic Community Field during Thursday’s meeting.
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In June 2021, the renaming committee members -- which included students, parents, Jack Yates alumni, and community members -- voted to suggest the name George Floyd in honor of his life.
Floyd is an alum of Jack Yates High School, where he played football and grew up in Cuney Homes in the Third Ward.
Earlier this year, in tribute to Floyd, a Black Lives Matter mural was painted in crimson and gold on Alabama Street in front of Yates High School. At the end of the mural is a red football jersey with a yellow 88, the number Floyd wore, along with the dates of his birth and death at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
Jack Yates High School is named after Rev. Jack Yates, a former slave who eventually became one of the most influential leaders of Fourth Ward Houston in the 19th century. Yates founded both Bethel and Antioch Baptist Churches, around which the Fourth Ward grew, and sponsored many other churches and schools in hopes of developing youth as leaders.