Reply to Petition to Change Names of Stuart and Lee HS

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Reply to "Petition to Change Names of Stuart and Lee HS"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What is this mission to erase all memories of the civil war? It happened. Justice won, and we all learned from it.

Should we also petition that they shut down the Holocaust museum because we want to forget that too?

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana[/quote]

There is this side of history, yes.

However, I think that the fact that these schools were named after Confederate generals only when ordered to desegregate speaks volumes (I have not researched the timing of the naming, and am assuming the history explained in the petition is accurate). These schools were not named to honor the Confederate generals. They were named to signal, loudly, to black students and their parents that they were not welcome, and to deter them from attending. And it was probably at least somewhat effective. It would take a brave parent to send a black child to a school that had just been renamed after a Confederate general. I wouldn't be able to put my kid in the middle of that s*&%storm.

I don't think that aspect of history should be erased - in fact, I think it should be more widely known that so many institutions took such indirect steps to maintain segregation. But there is a difference between whitewashing history and preserving a name meant to intimidate and scare. 
[/quote]

Exactly how I feel about the Confederate Flag. Thanks, PP.  I am not sure how I feel about the school names yet, but I agree with your reasoning.   [/quote]

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