A Yonkers public school where singer Ella Fitzgerald was a student has been named in her honor. Long before becoming internationally known as “The First Lady of Song,” Fitzgerald lived in Yonkers with her mother and her mother”™s boyfriend and attended the Yonkers Public Schools, first at School 10 and then School 18 at 77 Park Hill Ave. School 18 later was named the Scholastic Academy for Excellence. Earlier this year, the Yonkers School Board voted to rename the Scholastic Academy as the Ella Fitzgerald Academy for Excellence.
Fitzgerald was born April 25, 1917, in Newport News, Virginia. She died on June 15, 1996, in Beverly Hills, California. During her performing career that lasted 50 years she sold more than 40 million albums and won 13 Grammy awards.
During a Sept. 29 dedication ceremony, Dr. Valencia Brown-Wyatt, principal of the school, said, “Ella was a woman of strength. She was persistent. She never gave up on her own goals and dreams, despite her struggles. As a young girl who lived right here in Yonkers she attended School 10 in grades one through three and then she attended School 18 in grades four through six. School 18, also known as Scholastic Academy (is) now known as the Ella Fitzgerald Academy for Excellence.”
Brown-Wyatt praised Fitzgerald for overcoming many difficulties during her childhood and later in her life.
“She used her painful memories as a source of her strength for all of her performances,” Brown-Wyatt said. “She always held her head high in the face of racism. Due to her worldwide notoriety, other top performers stood by her to ensure she received the respect she deserved.”
Rev. Steve Lopez, president of the Yonkers Board of Education, read a letter from Fitzgerald”™s son Ray Brown, Jr.
“I wish I was with you to be able to share this message, to be able to share a large ”˜thank you”™ in person to the Board of Education Trustees and the Superintendent of Schools for reaching out to me, for allowing me to thank you on behalf of my mother,” Brown”™s message said. “I can only surmise the joy she would be feeling at hearing this name change. I can visualize a smile across her face and an extra bit of sparkle in her eyes.”
Brown encouraged students at the school to never give up trying to do what they really want to do and expressed confidence that “the Ella Fitzgerald Academy will help you get to where you want to go.”
Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano said, “Ella Fitzgerald was an inspiration and continues to be an inspiration. Ella Fitzgerald loved the arts. She loved to learn. We see her in this room learning, just like you are, and no doubt she was courageous.”
Spano pointed out that in addition to a statue of her in Getty Square, the city has an Ella Fitzgerald mural in Ridge Hill. He urged the students to listen to her music. Spano declared Sept. 29 as Ella Fitzgerald Day in Yonkers.
State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins recalled that her mother and father listened to Ella Fitzgerald”™s music all of the time.
“Here was a Black woman who despite the racism, despite the obstacles, had a talent,” Stewart-Cousins said. “That talent was so big nobody could take it away and nobody could put it down.”
Dr. Edwin M. Quezada, the superintendent of schools, positioned Ella Fitzgerald as a trailblazer who made changes that conventional wisdom did not think possible.
“I never met any of the individuals that I admire the most in the world; I never got to interact with them,” Quezada said. “I have learned about them and how powerful they were. So, our students will learn how powerful Ella Fitzgerald was to Yonkers and to the United States and to the world. And, as you learn about her, then you will realize that there are possibilities for each and every one of you because equity is an action verb that tells you there are steps that I need to take to arrive at equity.”
Two Yonkers teachers, Alonda Hassell and Gwen Henderson, who also are active with the Kingdom Christian Cultural Center in Yonkers, sang a medley of Ella Fitzgerald songs followed by a songfest featuring students at the school.
