Confederate General's Descendant Rebukes Decision to Honor His Ancestor [View all]
Source: Newsweek
Published May 11, 2024 at 1:02 PM EDT | Updated May 11, 2024 at 2:49 PM EDT
A descendant of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson has rebuked a decision from a Virginia county school board to honor his ancestor on CNN's First of All With Victor Blackwell on Saturday. On Friday, the Shenandoah County School Board voted to restore the names of two schools that were previously named after Civil War Confederate generals.
In July 2021, Stonewall Jackson High and Ashby Lee Elementary were renamed Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School as schools across the country have done with names and symbols associated with the Confederacy following Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that hit a peak in 2020.
However, the school district, which is predominantly white and Republican, became the first to reverse its Confederate name-stripping. After the 5-1 vote, the elementary and high school will go back to their previous names honoring three well-known Confederate generals—Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson and Turner Ashby.
Jackson worked alongside Lee, commander the Army of Northern Virginia, during much of the Civil War. Jackson and his troops played an instrumental part in several battles—the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Antietam, the battle of Fredericksburg and the Battle of Chancellorsville. Newsweek reached out to the chairman of the Shenandoah County School Board Dennis Barlow via email for comment.
Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/stonewall-jackson-descendant-rebukes-decision-rename-school-1899572
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