We want Robert E. Lee’s name off our school (TX)

[struggle4progress]

SUNDAY, MAY 8, 2016 11:59 AM EDT
DAN OPPENHEIMER

... In Austin .. the School Board solicited suggestions for new names for Robert E. Lee Elementary School and ... suggestions included Adam Lanza Elementary, Bleeding Heart Liberal Elementary, and worse ...

We are ordinary parents who have been struggling with a classically American question in a very traditional, democratic-minded way: What kind of school do we want for our kids? ...

The school name, .. chosen in 1939 at the suggestion of the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was a reflection of the character and ideology of the neighborhood in the 1930s. In 2016 it’s an active deterrent to black families in Austin to move to the neighborhood, and it honors a narrative of southern history that .. is false and toxic ...

http://www.salon.com/2016/05/08/we_want_robert_e_lees_name_off_our_school_and_in_return_we_were_greeted_with_hateful_internet_trolling/

[Hoppy]

1. When I think of Robert E. Lee, I first imaging the thoughts going through his mind on the night he

paced the floor, deciding if his loyalty was with the Union or Virginia. Two loyalties... but he could but choose one.

Then I think about the Confederate soldiers who were walking past the place where he was sleeping. They took off their boots so as not to make noise and wake him.

At Appomattox, his concern was for his soldiers and their need to have their horses to plow fields. He asked nothing for himself.


I don't live there so it ain't my decision but if it were up to me, I'd leave his name on the school.

[struggle4progress]

2. I think of Arlington: it is his fitting memorial