GREENSBORO, NC -- Right now, your feedback could change the historical name of a Greensboro school.
On Friday, the Guilford County School Board opened an online survey to anyone who might want to change the name of Aycock Middle School.
The school is named after Charles B. Aycock, who served as Governor of North Carolina from 1901-1905.
He was known as the "Education Governor," but was also an advocate for white supremacy and segregation.
When you ask around in Greensboro, it doesn’t take long to realize that this is a very controversial topic.
You'll find a lot of strong, emotional opinions on both sides of the debate.
Some say the “Aycock” name should be completely erased from the local history books but others say you just can't do that.
"It's a long history of that Aycock school. Why change history? It's part of history,” said Joe Milliner. “So why do we need to change it?"
"It's not about erasing the history,” said Ronit Lawrence. “All history is important because you have to learn from it. But you don't want something like that to linger behind you or linger after something so beautiful such as education. We know what happened but we don't want that to be what we are known for.”
The Guilford County School Board acknowledges that there is a lot of controversy surrounding the legacy of Governor Charles B. Aycock.
That's why the board voted to host a public forum on the possibility of renaming the school.
But it’s not just GCS taking action.
In May, UNCG officials removed the name "Aycock" from its auditorium on campus.
Plus, Duke and ECU decided to change buildings named after “Aycock” because of his association with white supremacy.
Some folks in Greensboro say changing the name of Aycock Middle School would bring our community closer together.
"Being with everything like the violence and hatred and everything that's going on in the world at this point in time, that would be a great step to change the Aycock name to something else,” said Tykera. “(Change it) to something more civilized. Something that everybody can agree on."
"We acknowledge that it is something ugly. So we don't want to be known for that ugliness,” said Lawrence. “Aycock Middle School is a good school and we don't want someone to be like ‘Oh you go to Aycock Middle? Do you know the man that it's named after did all these things?’ You don't want all those things to follow your school.”
"I think it would be a wonderful idea so as the years go by, maybe they will just forget all about it," said Angie Celestine.
To voice your opinion, fill out this survey online.
It allows you to tell the school board whether they should change the name or not and what you think the new name should be.
The survey will be available until next Friday, July 22.
Once the survey is finished, GCS will host a community meeting at Aycock Middle School on July 26, starting at 6 PM.