The late Chicago baseball legend Minnie Miñoso was also known as “Mr. White Sox” and the “Cuban Comet.” Now he will be known, too, for a South Side school that newly bears his name.
Minnie Miñoso Academy — the building formerly known as George McClellan Elementary, located just a few blocks west of Sox ballpark Guaranteed Rate Field — was celebrated Thursday with a back-to-school bash ahead of opening day in Chicago Public Schools Monday. Miñoso’s son, Charlie Rice-Miñoso, and Sox mascot Southpaw were among those on hand to welcome families to the rechristened campus.
Miñoso was Chicago’s first Black major-league player when he joined the team in 1951 — homering off a Yankees pitcher his first time at bat in Comiskey Park — and was one of the game’s first Afro-Latino stars. The Hall of Famer was a multi-season All-Star who spent part of 12 seasons with the Sox and also played for the Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Cardinals and Washington Senators after three seasons in the Negro Leagues. He died in 2015.
The building bearing his name is among three in CPS that are beginning the new school year with new monikers. The others are Daisy Bates Academy of Social Justice, formerly Caldwell Academy of Math & Science, and Monarcas Academy, formerly Enrico Tonti Elementary.
CPS said it worked with families, teachers and students to come up with names that “better reflect the community and its values.”
It’s part of a larger effort to rid Illinois’ largest school district of campuses named after people who were slaveholders or are otherwise considered problematic by modern standards. McClellan, for example, was a politician and a commanding general for the U.S. Army during the Civil War, but while he fought on the Union side, he largely opposed the abolition of slavery.
CPS also recently renamed Daniel Boone Elementary to Mosaic School of Fine Arts. Boone, a pioneer and frontiersman who died in 1820, was long viewed as a folk hero, but his legacy has been reconsidered because he was a slave owner and because of his treatment of Indigenous people. CPS’ equity office determined him to be a “historically egregious figure.”
