The school board meeting stretched into early Friday. During the debate, a Black student athlete told the board, « I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves. »
The Shenandoah County School Board in Virginia will restore the names of Confederate generals Thomas « Stonewall » Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby to two local schools. The controversial reversal comes nearly four years after the names were changed.
Mountain View High School will revert to its former name, Stonewall Jackson High School, and Honey Run Elementary School will go back to being Ashby-Lee Elementary School.
The board approved the change by a 5-1 vote, with supporters saying the Confederate figures’ names had been taken off the schools in 2020 in a « knee-jerk » reaction amid protests of George Floyd’s murder by police. But opponents — including some current students — warned the board that the Confederate names would brand the schools and their county as a haven for backward, racist thinking.
Debate over changing the name began last month. As member station WMRA reports, it was the second attempt to restore the names, after a failed try in 2022.
At the contentious and lengthy meeting saw, advocates from both sides drew raucous cheers and ovations from their supporters. The public session started around 7 p.m. ET Thursday and stretched into the early hours of Friday.Here’s what the students said
A handful of students attended the meeting, including several who said the current names represent inclusion and progress and should be kept.
« School board minutes from 1959 reveal that the decision to name our school after Stonewall Jackson was a product of massive resistance, » said student Pria Dua, referring to an era when Virginia’s leaders were aggressively fighting attempts to racially integrate the state’s schools.
Like some of the other students who spoke, Dua attends classes at Mountain View High School as part of her curriculum at the Massanutten Regional Governor’s School (a program that draws students from several school systems).
« I acknowledge that the community has been left divided and unhappy over the initial name change, » Dua said. But, she asked the board, « By taking this step backward in 2024, what foot are we putting forward? What legacy are you leaving behind for my generation to inherit? »
Another student, Eden Shelhamer, criticized the board for investing time and energy into what she called a « clearly divisive argument » at the expense of important issues, while also seeming to refuse to consider students’ opinions.
