EAST LANSING, Mich. (WILX) – East Lansings Pinecrest Elementary is renamed in honor of a civil rights pioneer.
It will be known as the Robert Green Elementary after the first black man owned a house in the city and incorporated the district.
Green also played a key role in the national civil rights movement.
“Let me tell you something, it brought tears to my eyes last night,” said Vince Green, Robert Green’s son.
Vince Green is considered to be the first black student at East Lansing Public Schools.
He attended Pinecrest Elementary from second through sixth grades after his father bought a house in the neighborhood.
“My father was very humble so he didn’t talk about it a lot until a few years ago,” said Green.
Now this school is named after his father who now lives in Virginia.
Robert Green often stood between the police and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“You were close. Dr. King personally recruited my father, ”said Green. “We were young. We understood the meaning of it to some extent. But there were places where my brothers and I wondered, we started to see what had happened on TV, if my father would ever come home . “
Vince Green said at the time that he did not know he would be one of the first black students at Pinecrest to lead the way.
He said it was a great experience for him thanks to his father.
“My father did a lot of things to keep us safe because we would get calls. Menacing and threatening calls threatening our family. We didn’t know that. My father protected us from that, ”said Green.
He also only became aware of his father’s great role in the civil rights movement in old age, and he is still amazed.
“They were very young if you think about it. To me it’s amazing how young they were and what they did,” said Green.
East Lansing Public Schools are required to file some paperwork with the state in order to officially change the school name.
The board members hoped that everything would be settled sometime by the end of next month.
The house that Robert Green bought in East Lansing is also getting a historical marker and is expected to be unveiled next month.
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