Woman Unhappy About Schools Named After Confederates

http://www.nbc13.com/education/2626196/detail.html

Oh yes, Robert E lee is a horrible role model.


You know....more and more lately I have been thinking. Literally everything Southern under specious and unremitting attack. That, along with the numbers of Yankees invading and supplanting Southerners. It has become more and more on my mind....while this struggle to survive is blatantly ignored by those who should know better but remain silent...and with their silence give approval....they will regret our passing. It will be a much worse place without us. We are the salt that gives this nation a certain flavor. Of course, once we are gone....who do you think they will come after next?

[gary]

I'm under the impression that Marsh Roberts did everything he could to promote reconciliation between the belligerents. If this is true, why isn't he remembered for this? Certainly by then he was a "man of peace" and compassion.

[hoosier]

My stepdaughter lives about a block from a high school. The school was once named after Woodrow Wilson, but they changed the name some years back and it is now called Harry S. Truman High School. Seems that Wilson, despite all his many accomplishments, was posthumously found guilty of the sin of racism and accordingly judged unworthy to have the school continue to bear his name, so they renamed it after a president who isn't considered so politically incorrect.

I suppose it is true that Wilson may have been a racist. Quite possibly, he may have been more of one than Bobby Lee ever was.

Perhaps they ought to give the activists in Hampton a choice. Either they can leave the school's name as it is, or they can rename it after Wilson.

It'd be interesting to see which they would choose.

[gary]

Didn't Wilson say that "The Birth of a Nation" was one of the most significant movies ever made? That's hardly an under statement as it provided the impetus for the rebirth of the KKK. Thank you Mr. League of Nation.

Many dislike idea of changing school names

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-09290sy0nov13,0,1968190.story?coll=dp-ne ws-local-final

I think we should change the name of Washington, District of Columbia. I mean, seriously. Washington was a slave owner who only freed his slaves upon his death. And Columbia comes from Columbus. Columbus was a slaver as well. Enslaving the indians in great numbers. Not to mention the racial genocide he precipitated. While we are at it why not ban the flag that flew over every American slave ship? Hey, We most certainly must change the name "America" since Amerigo Vespucci enslaved his share of indians and sold them. Fair is fair right?

Ok, the link above appears to be defective for some reason...at least for me...here is the story



Many dislike idea of changing school names


By Kerrie Frisinger
Daily Press

Published November 13, 2003

HAMPTON -- In his 1951 novel, "Requiem for a Nun," William Faulkner wrote: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

Half a century later, that quote still surfaces in debates over Southern history and is resonating locally in discussions of one woman's proposal to change the names of Robert E. Lee Elementary and Jefferson Davis Middle schools in Hampton.

Many Hampton Roads residents have said that Erenestine Harrison, who started the petition to change the schools' names, should leave well enough alone rather than try to rewrite history.

"You can't go back and change something that happened 150 years ago," said 68-year-old Elizabeth Vance, who raised her children in Hampton but now lives in Suffolk.

"We were taught to respect things, respect people, authority," she said of her own upbringing.

Harrison has gathered about 300 signatures on her petition to change the name of Robert E. Lee Elementary School to Maya Elementary School, in honor of poet Maya Angelou, and Jefferson Davis Middle School to Beth-Day, after social activist Mary McLeod Bethune and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

She wants to collect 2,000 signatures before presenting the petition to the Hampton School Board.

The School Board has not made an official statement on the proposal. But, "whenever somebody comes before the board, they want to approach it with an open mind," division spokeswoman Ann Stephens said.

Ultimately, though, she said, "our focus is what's going on inside the schools."

Harrison has said she fears it's psychologically damaging to send black children - 94 percent of students at Lee and 66 percent at Davis are African-American - to schools named after Lee, general of the Confederate armies during the Civil War, and Davis, president of the Confederacy.

But Florence Credle, a retired kindergarten teacher, fears the fray over the names may prove most damaging of all.

"I don't care if they're black, white, green, yellow or polka-dotted," said Credle, a 1956 graduate of Hampton High School. "They should leave the names of the schools alone. I don't want to see this woman destroy the love it's taken these kids years to build up. It's just going to come to a racial battle we don't need."

Credle said she called the Hampton School Board offices and asked that the school names be left alone and that Harrison, who occasionally works as a substitute teacher in Hampton, be relieved of her duties.

"We've been getting calls and e-mails 24-7," Stephens, the schools spokeswoman, said.

Catherine Miller, 50, said she agrees with Harrison but wonders why the names weren't changed earlier.

"They lost the war," Miller said of Lee and Davis. "They were against the U.S. and public schools represent the U.S. And now (Harrison) has to get a petition? That's not right."

Online forums have picked up on the issue, as have local radio stations. Harrison said she plans to go on Eagle 97, a country music station, Friday.

"I just want to see what they want to say," Harrison said.

John Shomby, program manager for Eagle 97, said his listeners have railed heavily against Harrison's proposal. Their typical listener is 30 or 40, has a family and holds conservative views, he said.

"These are people who get behind homecomings," Shomby said.

Several people have questioned Harrison's argument of psychological damage and have objected to her proposal to rename the schools after people with little or no local relevance.

"Robert E. Lee was a great American," one man wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Press. "He was not only a great military leader but an educator - a university president."

Lee, a Virginia native, served as president of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, after the Civil War. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Lee served the Union armies for 35 years but chose to lead the Confederate army in the Civil War because he felt he could not fight against his home state.





(Message edited by aphillbilly on November 13, 2003)