An East Lansing elementary school will now bear the name of a local civil rights pioneer.
The East Lansing School Board voted unanimously Monday to rename Pinecrest Elementary School. It now will be known as Dr. Robert L. Green Elementary.
Green became the first-ever African American to buy a home in East Lansing in 1962.
The city’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Administrator, Elaine Hardy, spoke at the meeting.
She has worked on the school’s renaming committee, as well as the effort to put up a Michigan historical marker near the home.
“He opened doors for Black people all over this country," she said. “In order for them to be able to live in neighborhoods that traditionally would not allow them to.”
Dr. Green’s eldest son, Vince Green, thanked the school board before the vote.
“The school looks a lot different than when I went to school there, but it is beautiful, and we would have such an honor to recognize my dad and what he did for the civil rights movement,” Green said.
There are plans to erect a Michigan historical marker near the home where the Green family lived.
