2 US schools in Virginia to restore names honoring Confederate leaders

WASHINGTON

A school board in the US state of Virginia voted early Friday morning to restore the names of two schools that honored Confederate military leaders.

The Shenandoah County School Board voted 5-1 to restore the names that honor the three generals, including Robert E. Lee, Turner Ashby and Stonewall Jackson, according to NBC News. Mountain View High School will return to being named Stonewall Jackson High School while Honey Run Elementary School will revert to Ashby-Lee Elementary School.

The schools were originally renamed in 2020 after the brutal police murder of George Floyd, bystander footage of which contradicted the official Minneapolis law enforcement narrative. The killing caused a wider debate on the police-involved killings of Black men, as well as Confederate iconography and naming.

The conservative Coalition for Better Schools community group had sought the restoration of the names of the Confederate leaders who led a munity against the US with the intent of preserving the right to own people as slaves. The Confederacy ultimately failed, and slavery was abolished across the US by then-President Abraham Lincoln.

"We understand that the decision to rename these schools was made in response to discussions surrounding Confederate symbols. However, we believe that revisiting this decision is essential to honor our community’s heritage and respect the wishes of the majority," the coalition wrote April in a publicly-posed letter.