An all-white, local Virginia school board must think they’re slick because they just voted to roll back the renaming of two schools commemorating Confederate military and pro-slavery icons Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Turner Ashby.
board’s April 22 session, posted on YouTube, board members criticized the how the schools were renamed in 2020 as rushed and without public input.
Screenshot: Shenandoah County Public Schools/YouTube (Other)
In the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, Virginia’s Shenandoah County school board changed the names of Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee Elementary School in Quicksburg, Virginia, to Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School. Per American History, Jackson, Lee, and Ashby were all big on keeping Black people in bondage.
However, as reported by WTVR Richmond, the school board this week has voted 5-1 to reverse that decision and return to their roots, so to speak. The decision garnered celebrations from some and condemnation by others.
According to multiple reports, the reversal is considered to be the first case in our nation’s history that a school was reinstated with names associated with Confederate icons; with the ongoing war against all things diversity, equity, and inclusion that seems to be happening around the country, this seems to only be the beginning of a “realignment” with
Last month, a group of residentsnamed The Coalition for Better Schools reportedly asked the school board to consider reinstating the names. In an April 3 letter to the school board, the organization said it believed “that revisiting this decision is essential to honor our community’s heritage and respect the wishes of the majority.”
One woman in favor of restoring the Confederate names said it was simply about “preservation,” WTVR reports. “I ask that when you cast your vote, you remember that Stonewall Jackson and others fighting on the side of the Confederacy in this area were intent on protecting the land, the buildings and the lives of those under attack.”
However, a Black eighth-grader by the name of Aaliyah Ogle had another take, the Daily Mail reported.
‘This year I played three sports at Mountain View. I’m a black student,” she said during the public school board session on May 9. By reinstating the Confederate names, “I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves,” she explained. “That makes me feel like I’m disrespecting my ancestors and going against what my family and I believe, which is that you should all be treated equally and that slavery an awful thing.”
Amen.
No word yet on whether the school board plans to revisit the decision.
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