Virginia school district reverses Confederate names

As the school year begins, families often have questions about schedules, classroom materials, and new teachers. But for some Virginia students, the most pressing question is simple: What should they name their school?

Briana Brown and AD Carter begin their senior year at Shenandoah County High School on Tuesday. Mr. Carter, 17, plays football, is on the swim team and hopes to earn a football scholarship to college next year. Miss Brown, 17, loves participating in musicals and dressing up for homecoming week.

But their pride ends with the name of the school – Stonewall Jackson High School, named after a prominent Confederate general in the American Civil War.

The school bore this name from 1960 until July 2021, after the school board voted to change the name to Mountain View High School in 2020 amid the racism scandal that rocked the nation following the police killing of unarmed black man George Floyd.

But just four years later, the school board reversed its decision and changed the name back to its original name in honor of the Confederate general.

“I knew I would be uncomfortable returning to that place after seeing it regress and go back in time,” said Carter, who is black.

“I really don’t identify with any of the ideals or what Stonewall Jackson stood for.”

He and Miss Brown are part of a lawsuit filed by the Virginia chapter of the NAACP, which alleges that the change back to the historic names created an “unlawful and discriminatory” environment for black students.

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in the national debate over which parts of American history should be honored and how the legacy of slavery should be honored in our country.

After Floyd’s death, many school districts responded by renaming schools in an attempt to counter historical racism by removing the names of American figures known to have owned slaves, fought for the Confederate Army, supported segregation, or otherwise promoted racism against black Americans.

Names of schools targeted include Jackson, Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

According to Education Week Since June 2020, at least 61 schools have changed their names to non-Confederate names. There are currently about 340 schools in 21 states named after Confederate figures.

Chandra Manning, a history professor at Georgetown University, said naming schools after Confederate soldiers took off in the 1950s after the government ordered that only whites in segregated schools had to admit black students in an effort to make black students feel unwelcome.

“It wasn’t a widespread trend until the Brown versus Board of Education decision in 1954, which mandated desegregation of public schools,” she told the BBC. “And after that decision, the number and frequency of schools named after Confederate generals increased quite dramatically and suddenly.”

When the school board voted 5-1 in 2020 to remove the Stonewall Jackson name from the high school, it sparked a local debate.

“There is no way to preserve the traditions and heritage of one group and mitigate the injustice that another group may have felt,” Shenandoah County School Superintendent Andrew Keller said in the summer of 2020 when Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee Elementary School were considering name changes. “You can’t keep a name and remove racist implications from it. You can’t claim to be inclusive, which we do, and have students who feel excluded.”

Others were concerned that the name change would mean losing an important part of local Civil War history. The only board member who disagreed asked, “Where is this going to end?” According to media reports at the time.

“At some point we have to take a stand. If we don’t, we’re going to lose the land,” said board member Marty Helsley.

Now there is a kind of counter-score and some argue that the names should be returned to what they were.

The Shenandoah County School District is the first in the country to do so, restoring the names of Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary, which were named after Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby. The school board declined to comment on the May vote, which was 5-1 to return to the original name, citing the pending lawsuit.

Among the driving forces behind the restoration of the school names is Mike Scheibe, a father of two at Ashby Lee and a Civil War reenactor. He is also a spokesperson for the Coalition for Better Schools, a local organization that has lobbied the school board to change the names back.

He said the names of the schools were a reminder of local history and that the renaming decision had not taken everyone’s views into account because pandemic-era restrictions had made it difficult for opponents of the renaming to attend the school board meetings where the votes were taken.

“When I look at Robert E. Lee, the comparisons between him and George Washington are enormous,” he said, noting that Washington also owned slaves.

“I wonder when George Washington’s name and things like that will have to disappear from things.”

“But to be told that everyone who fought for the Confederacy or did this or that is a racist slave owner is all or nothing and really doesn’t do history justice,” he added.

Since winning the name battle, the coalition has also raised money to cover the costs of the name changes at Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary, such as purchasing new uniforms and merchandise for the school. The old signs in front of the school remained on school property and were reinstalled after the vote.

Riley, 16, begins her penultimate year of high school on Tuesday. She said students are talking about the name change but don’t see the name as the problem, but rather the back and forth.

“It’s kind of annoying that it’s being changed … back and forth,” she said. “I don’t really think it was an issue that needed to be changed from the beginning. Just because our school has a name doesn’t mean our school and community is what people say it is.”

Her mother, Kim, said the change has made no difference in much of the community and is just a lot of waste of money.

“It’s something they just did and we had to deal with it, but it didn’t really matter, we still called it Stonewall,” she said. “To us it’s really just a name, it doesn’t mean anything, and that’s just how it’s always been.”

But while supporters of the school’s original name may have won that battle, some students are determined not to win the war.

Miss Brown and Mr. Carter, along with the Virginia NAACP, hope their lawsuit will prevent other school boards from honoring Confederate leaders and slave owners.

The lawsuit alleges that the school board is violating the First Amendment right to free speech.

“The school board is pressuring and forcing students to spread their support for the Confederacy, their allegiance to the Confederacy and particularly to the views of the Confederate leaders for whom these schools are named,” Ashley Joyner Chavous, a Covington and Burling attorney handling the lawsuit, told the BBC.

The next hearing in this case will be on October 1.

“Every time I see it, I think of a time when I would not have been welcome at this school,” said Miss Brown, referring to the fact that the school was white-only from its opening in 1960 until integration in 1963.

“It’s not necessarily about me, it’s about everyone, all the students of color who come after me. They’re the ones I care about,” she said. “I want them to feel comfortable at school. And I want people to feel comfortable moving here from other places and not think that’s who we are.”