In recent years, there has been a concerted effort to sever ties with the country’s past. Iconoclasts and revisionists have toppled hundreds of statues, renamed species, melted busts, removed church windows, dug graves, renamed places, and done so, as the Biden administration did last year. went so far as to eliminate the settlement devised by Jewish Americans. Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
Virginia’s Board of Education bucked the trend early Friday.
Two schools in the Shenandoah County Public Schools District were renamed in 2021 following a vote by the school board the previous year. Stonewall Jackson High School was named after Confederate infantryman General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson and became Mountain View High School. Ashby Lee Elementary School is named for Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, and Turner Ashby, commander of the Rebel Cavalry. honey run elementary school. The Confederacy’s association with slavery was reportedly a key factor in the decision to make this change.
Axios report The Coalition for Better Schools, a local conservative group, said it continues to push for the name to be reinstated after a failed 2022 attempt. claimed In an April 3 letter to SCPS board members, the group said it understood that “the decision to rename these schools was made in response to the controversy surrounding Confederate symbols.” “Reconsidering this decision is essential to respecting the traditions of our community and respecting our society,” he said. This is the wish of the majority. ”
rear SCPS Board of Education meeting On Thursday night, after nearly six hours and extensive public comment, the board voted 5-1 to overturn the 2020 decision.
Opponents of the restoration suggested the changes would gloss over historic racism.
“Voting to reinstate the Stonewall Jackson name in 2024 will forever reinstate a 1959 act rooted in mass resistance and Jim Crow racism,” residents said. one person said.
Councilor Kyle Gutshall, the only councilor to vote against the motion, suggested there was no clear reason to justify the restoration. report WLOX-TV.
“We talked about the right and wrong ways to do it,” Gasol said. “Things like this really come down to perspective and how you look at things.”
Some supporters suggested that even an incomplete history is worth remembering.
“The people of the Shenandoah Valley insist that the Confederates were the only ones who did terrible things and did terrible things to black people,” School Board President Dennis Barlow said. “You just stopped reading your history and you’re not being realistic. War is hell.”
of motion The bill, which was ultimately passed early Friday morning, calls for “remediation to be carried out using only privately donated funds, not school system or government tax dollars.”
Robert Watson, assistant professor of history at Hampton University, said: was suggested wrote an article for USA Today ahead of the school district’s vote to potentially become the first in the nation to rescind a Confederate school name change policy.
“If we can get traction in the Shenandoah Valley, we’ll probably get some traction.” [in] It’s somewhere else,” Watson said.
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