Virginia’s Shenandoah County School Board voted 5-1 Friday to reverse a decision in 2020 by reinstating Confederate officers’ names to two campuses, multiple outlets reported.
Mountain View High School has now become Stonewall Jackson High School and Honey Run Elementary has become Ashby Lee Elementary, according to the decision, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
A video showing some of the school board’s deliberations was tweeted out by Reuters. (RELATED: Dad Strips Down At School Board Meeting To Rail Against ‘Inappropriate’ Dress Code)
Confederate names will be reinstated at two schools in Shenandoah County, Virginia, after the school board voted in favor of the move. US institutions removed symbols of the Confederacy for four years following George Floyd’s murder in 2020 pic.twitter.com/6iBDXnPAEm
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 10, 2024
These schools were first renamed in a nod to the concerns of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, Reuters reported. This decision proved an unpopular one given that voters mobilized to vote in a much more conservative-minded school board in 2023, according to the AP.
Board member Gloria Carlineo said Thursday during a six-hour meeting of the board that opponents of the Confederate renaming campaign ought to “stop bringing racism and prejudice into everything” since “detracts from true cases of racism,” the outlet reported. Vice chairman of the board Kyle Gutshall, the sole dissenting vote, said he was representing the views of the majority of voters in his own district, Reuters reported.
This is reportedly the first instance of a school board reversing a four year trend of removing Confederate names and symbols from schools and other public buildings.
Robert E. Lee was the most notable commanding general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, winning numerous victories against Union generals, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. He yielded the field to the Union at Gettysburg and ultimately surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865.
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was a Confederate general and subordinate of Robert E. Lee who had a reputation for military prowess and was killed in a friendly fire incident at the battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, according to the History Channel’s website. Jackson got his sobriquet during the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861 by charging with his men and holding against Union troops “like a stone wall.”
General Turner Ashby was a Confederate cavalry officer who served under Jackson and at times argued with his superior, once considering a duel with the other general before rejecting the notion, according to the Warfare History Network. Ashby was killed in a skirmish against Union cavalry outside Harrisonburg, Virginia.
