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Posted on 01/04/2004 11:42:30 PM PST by freedom44
HAMPTON, Va. - At Jefferson Davis Middle School, a civil war of words is being waged over a petition drive to erase the name of the slave-owning Confederate president from the school.
Opinion is mixed, and it's not necessarily along racial lines.
"If it had been up to Robert E. Lee, these kids wouldn't be going to school as they are today," said civil rights leader Julian Bond, now a history professor at the University of Virginia. "They can't help but wonder about honoring a man who wanted to keep them in servitude."
That argument isn't accepted universally among Southern black educators, including the school superintendent in Petersburg, where about 80 percent of the 36,000 residents are black. Three schools carry the names of Confederates.
"It's not the name on the outside of the building that negatively affects the attitudes of the students inside," Superintendent Lloyd Hamlin said. "If the attitudes outside of the building are acceptable, then the name is immaterial."
It is difficult to say how many public schools in the 11 former Confederate states are named for Civil War leaders from the South. Among the more notable names, the National Center for Education Statistics lists 19 Robert E. Lees, nine Stonewall Jacksons and five Davises. J.E.B. Stuart, Turner Ashby, George Edward Pickett each have at least one school bearing their name.
For some, these men who defended a system that allowed slavery should not be memorialized on public schools where thousands of black children are educated.
The symbols and the names of the Confederacy remain powerful reminders of the South's history of slavery and the war to end it. States, communities and institutions continue to debate what is a proper display of that heritage.
Students in South Carolina have been punished for wearing Confederate flag T-shirts to school. The town of Clarksdale, Miss., permanently lowered the state flag — which has a Confederate emblem in one corner — to recognize "the pain and suffering it has symbolized for many years." And the Richmond-area Boy Scouts dropped Lee's name from its council this year.
In the most sweeping change, the Orleans Parish School Board in Louisiana gave new names to schools once named for historical figures who owned slaves. George Washington Elementary School was renamed for Dr. Charles Richard Drew, a black surgeon who organized blood banks during World War II.
In Gadsden, Ala., however, officials have resisted efforts to rename a middle school named for Nathan Bedford Forrest, an early backer of the Ku Klux Klan. And a school board in Kentucky adopted a new dress code that eliminates bans on provocative symbols including the Confederate flag.
The naming of schools after Confederate figures is particularly rich with symbolism because of the South's slow move to integrate. Many schools were named after the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) ruled segregated schools unconstitutional in 1954 but before the departure of whites left many inner city schools majority black.
"Now whites are complaining that they are changing the name of Stonewall Jackson High School," says Fitzhugh Brundage, a University of North Carolina history professor who is writing a book on "black and white memory from the Civil War."
While far from always the case, the naming of some public schools after Confederate generals was a parting shot to blacks emerging from segregated schools.
"It was an attempt to blend the past with the present but holding onto a romanticized past," Jennings Wagoner, a U.Va. scholar on the history of education, said of the practice of naming schools after Lee, Jackson and others. "It was also a time of extreme racism."
Erenestine Harrison, who launched the petition drive to rename Jefferson Davis Middle School, attended Hampton's segregated public schools. She moved north in 1967 and was struck by the school names upon her return seven years ago to Hampton, a city at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Educated as a psychologist, she has worked in the city schools as a substitute teacher.
"If I were a kid, especially a teenager, I would be ashamed to tell a friend that I went to Jefferson Davis," said Harrison, 55. "Basically, those guys fought for slavery."
But Henry Kidd, former Virginia commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (news - web sites), sees efforts by Harrison and others as a "chipping away, piece by piece, at our history."
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I am hoping that the AP writer has misquoted Mr. Julian Bond, because otherwise, Mr. Bond, now history professor at the University of Virginia has spoken a great untruth.
General Robert E. Lee opposed slavery and opposed secession. It was only after receiving word that his beloved State of Virginia had adopted the Ordinance of Secession April 17, 1861 that Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in the U.S. Army out of loyalty to his State.
Mr. Bond's quoted statements above are an outrageous insult to all Americans.
Lee wrote in an 1865 letter that the best relation of whites to blacks was that of master and slave.
Secondly, Lee clearly -supported- secession amd was in active contact with secessionist leaders while still under oath to the United States.
Walt
Not true.
"Secondly, Lee clearly -supported- secession amd was in active contact with secessionist leaders while still under oath to the United States."
False.
It would have been impossible for any serving officer in the United States Army in 1860 or 1861 to avoid the "taint" of the statement to which you reply -- there were secessionists everywhere! At the apothecary, in the Quartermaster Corps, in the bookstore, at the sutler's. Secessionists everywhere -- and the leadership of the state governments in several states were "secessionists" of some description, even Alexander Stephens of Georgia, an old Whig who disfavored secession, and the numerous planters who campaigned and voted for John Bell and the Constitutional Union Party in 1860, who likewise wanted the Southern States to remain in the Union somehow -- but once the issue was decided, then like true Jacksonians, they all went along with what the People in their State had decided, and mostly supported secession.
Robert E. Lee was offered a Virginia Militia commission as an alternative to his staying in the U.S. Army and accepting the command that went to Irvin McDowell instead. He accepted the commission offered by Governor Letcher of Virginia after he tendered his resignation both orally and by letter to General Winfield Scott and the Secretary of the Army. Presumably, he had some "active contact" with Governor Letcher or other Virginians (he probably knew most of them on a first-name basis and had been to their weddings) while he was still in the Army. His letters from his last days to other Virginians are still extant, reflecting his state of mind as he mulled over his future. That would also qualify as "active contact".
It would be better to say that, while accurate, the accusation is without weight. It's like accusing Abraham Lincoln of having had "active contact" with Senator Breckinridge, who later became a Confederate general. It's an attempt to imply treason, where it has been shown that the forthright accusation of treason won't hold up.
Anyway, there seems to be quite a fuss over this school in Hampton, Virginia. And naturally, Julian Bond, a radical "civil rights" leader, has stepped in and put his two cents worth in. In his pontification on this situation, Bond has, not very trenchantly, uttered: "If it had been up to Robert E. Lee, these kids wouldn't be going to school as they are today. They can't help wondering about honoring a man who wanted to keep them in servitude." Somewhat of an amazing statement - considering that Robert E. Lee really has nothing to do with this situation. The man the school is named after is Jeff Davis, not General Lee. I guess, however, that's about as much depth as you can expect from "civil rights" historians though. Should Mr. Bond decide to comment on General Lee, though, he ought to at least have done some homework. Robert E. Lee never fought to preserve slavery. He, in fact, freed slaves owned by his wife even before the War started, and he personally felt that slavery was a great moral and political evil. Even "civil rights" historians ought to know that much if they have taken the trouble to read anything at all about some of those they preach against. Or, worse yet, maybe they do know that much after all, but would rather you didn't know it. All the better to manipulate you with my dear.
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