Orange County elementary school named after prominent slaveholder to be renamed

HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- An elementary school named after a man who enslaved more than 1,000 people in the 1800s will be renamed this summer.

Orange County School Board unanimously agreed to the name change during a meeting Monday, according to our newsgathering partners at the News & Observer.

The Hillsborough school in question is currently called Cameron Park Elementary School. It is named after Paul Carrington Cameron, who was one of the state's richest men.

He owned more than 30,000 acres throughout North Carolina, and he enslaved more than 1,000 people to work that land.

Cameron Village in Raleigh made the same decision to change its name back in January.

A new name for Cameron Park Elementary School has not been chosen yet.

The decision to change the school's name comes after Orange County Schools researched all 13 district school names. That report also identified C.W. Stanford Middle School as one that should also be considered for a change.