Kanawha County, WV school board against renaming Stonewall Jackson Middle School

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Source: Charleston Gazette

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Kanawha County school board members aren’t expressing much support for renaming a Charleston school that’s dubbed after a Confederate general, is located on a former plantation — and has one of the county’s highest populations of black students.

School board member Becky Jordon noted that she’s a 1979 graduate of Stonewall Jackson High School, which is now Stonewall Jackson Middle School, and called the idea to change the name “ridiculous.” She repeatedly said it won’t bring back the nine people whom a white suspect with racist ideologies shot to death June 17 in a South Carolina church known for its historic place in the civil rights struggle.

(...)

She said changing the name would be jumping on a bandwagon, though she said she didn’t have an opinion on the South Carolina General Assembly’s vote to take down the Confederate battle flag at that state’s capitol.

(...)

“We’re lucky we don’t have these racial issues in our area, and we don’t need anyone stirring them up,” Jordon said. “… Thank goodness we don’t have slavery, but we don’t need to beat up on the people that did years ago. We need to move on.”



Read more: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20150713/GZ01/150719741

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The petition to rename the school:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/change-the-name-of-stonewall-jackson-middle-school.html

[Botany]

1. We’re lucky we don’t have these racial issues in our area, and we don’t need anyone stirring them up

" .... stirring THEM up ... " R you kidding me?

Kind of like that Duck Dynasty guy who talked about how happy the blacks were in
the Jim Crow south before they got all stirred up by outsiders.

[KamaAina]

2. Wait a minute. West Virginia only exists because it refused to secede

along with the rest of Virginia.

[mrmpa]

3. What is ironic is....

the fact that West Virginia was formed as a new state, being taken away from Virginia because of the abolitionist feelings in "Northern Virginia".. As Charleston is in southern WVA, I'm going to assume that the 1800's attitude of Virginians followd and grew in this area of West Virginia.

[TygrBright]

4. I suggest that henceforth the school be referred to as "Loserman Middle School," then. n/t

[Moonwalk]

5. "We need to move on"...Wouldn't changing the name do that?

[happyslug]

6. This School District is 78% white.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston,_West_Virginia#2010_census

While the High School that this Middle School now feeds into has the highest percentage of African Americans in any West Virginia High School, the percentage is still less then 1/3 of all students:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_High_School_(Charleston,_West_Virginia)