Friend,
More than 150 years after the Civil War, Confederate symbols remain
all too common in the United States, especially in the South. In fact,
many schools still bear the names of Confederate leaders. Imagine
trying to learn history inside a building whose name implicitly honors
the racist militancy of the Confederacy.
Today, as part of our Whose Heritage? report tracking Confederate
symbols, we released new data on the number of schools named after
Confederate leaders. We identified an additional 100 schools named
after Confederates. In total, there are now 198 "live"
schools (which still bear the names of Confederates) in our database.
If you include schools that are pending a rename, have been renamed or
have closed, the total is 304.
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Most of these schools are in the South; Georgia (45), Texas (40) and
Alabama (22) top the list. Twenty-one schools have committed to
changing their names but have not yet done so.
Interestingly, at least 80 of the newly identified schools were named
after a county or town that was itself named after a Confederate (i.e.
Lee High School in Lee County, Arkansas, named after Robert E. Lee).
The people who attend these schools may not even realize their school
name is a veneration of the values of the Confederacy - yet
another reason why we're committed to spreading the word with
our Whose Heritage? report.
A bright spot: 85 schools in our database have closed or been renamed,
and the rate of renaming has increased since the 2015 Charleston
church shooting that spurred the initial creation of our Whose
Heritage? report. This year alone, 17 schools have already changed
their names. We hope there are more to come.
You can view the complete list of schools named after Confederate
leaders here. To learn more about the history of Confederate symbols,
check out the full
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Whose Heritage? report here.
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Removing namesakes that celebrate a revisionist Confederate past does
not erase history; it corrects it. We'll be watching to see
which schools correct their history next.
In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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