More Than 200 Schools Are Named After Confederates

  In the United States, more than 200 schools are named after Confederates. Such figures include Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, etc. The good news is that, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, nearly 1/3 of these institutions have committed to changing or are considering changing their names. These schools are located in places such as Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Texas, California, Virginia, and West Virginia. Schools named after Confederates are located in 18 states, mostly concentrated in 7. Governer Ralph Northam wrote a formal request that all schools in Virginia with such names change them, and Florida and Texas have begun instituting mass change as well. In the wake of the Charleston shooting and Charlottesville massacre, in 2015 and 2017 respectively, 44 schools changed their names, reducing the number from 252 to 208. If all of the schools working toward change were to implement it, 144 would still be named after racists. That is still far too high.

Yet, apparently, it depends on who you ask. The worthless losers who devote their lives to preserving Confederate heritage can only be described as preserving racism. The Confederate States of America were formed illegitimately in 1861 to protect the institution of slavery.

Defenders of Robert E. Lee claim that he was nice to his slaves, that he inherited them, and that he didn't want to be the head of the C.S. Army. The start of his career was promising, and he fought gallantly in the Mexican-American War, led the U.S. Military Academy, and married into the Washington family. That's where the good ends. He admitted that he whipped his slaves, and, even if he didn't, the very idea of keeping human beings as property is hard to fathom. If he were really an unwitting participant in the slave trade, he could have sold them and purchased a home in Richmond or Williamsburg, for army officers were often gone for extended periods of time anyways. For the sake of fairness,, his role in John Brown's murder may be left out of consideration. He could have turned down the offer to lead the C.S. Army and fought to preserve the unity of his country, but instead he fought for his state, and above all, the institution of slavery. Allowing anything else to be his legacy would be a disgrace. The same goes for Jefferson Davis and John Tyler, and it is worth noting that the latter is the only former U.S. president to join the Confederacy and as such is the only president buried with a Confderate flag.

The same faulty logic used to justify Confederate monuments is used in the argument against the renaming of these schools. In no way is a name education. If the interior of the building cannot be relied on for this, then the problem extends beyond the systemic racism that permeates our culture. Names on instiutions and statues in squares can be described in only one word: glorification, and the men and women who betrayed their nation for the sake of racial inequality are the most undeserving sort.