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.

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 Whose Heritage? report here.

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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