In a reversal experts believe was the first of its kind, Shenandoah County’s school board voted 5-1 to rename Mountain View High School as Stonewall Jackson High School and Honey Run Elementary as Ashby Lee Elementary.
A Virginia school board voted Friday to restore the names of Confederate military leaders to a high school and an elementary school, four years after the names were removed amid nationwide protests calling for a reckoning over racial injustice.
In a reversal experts believe was the first of its kind, Shenandoah County’s school board voted 5-1 to rename Mountain View High School as Stonewall Jackson High School and Honey Run Elementary as Ashby Lee Elementary.
Friday’s vote reversed a decision by the school board in 2020 when school systems across Virginia and the South from schools and other public locations in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which maintains a database of more than 2,000 Confederate memorials nationwide, is not aware of another case of a school system restoring a Confederate name that was removed, said senior research analyst Rivka Maizlish.
Overall, the trend toward removal of Confederate names and memorials has continued, even if it has slowed somewhat since 2020, she said, noting that the Army renamed nine installations named for Confederate leaders, and removed a Confederate memorial from Arlington National Cemetery.
In Virginia, local governments had been banned from removing until the law was changed in 2020, though the statute did not apply to school names.
On Friday, school board members who voted to restore the Confederate names said the previous board ignored popular sentiment and due process when the names were stripped.
