Name: Montgomery school board votes to change the Confederate names of three high schools
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Montgomery school board votes to change the Confederate names of three high schools

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Montgomery AdvertiserView CommentsThe Montgomery County Board of Education voted Tuesday night to change&nbsp;the names of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Sidney Lanier high schools&nbsp;— each named after men who were members of the Confederacy.Each name change was voted on separately, with&nbsp;District 1's Lesa Keith voting against each. Board President Clare Weil also voted against changing the name of Lanier, where she graduated from.&nbsp;The district will now request a waiver to the 2017 Alabama Memorial Preservation Act which prevents the renaming&nbsp;or removal of monuments and buildings more than 40 years old without legislative approval. Waivers will be considered by an 11-person committee during its October meeting.&nbsp;If a waiver is not granted, the district would need to pay a $25,000 fine for each school to move forward with renaming them. District 5's Board Member Jannah Bailey announced during the meeting that by the Montgomery Moving Forward committee to support paying those fines.&nbsp;More:A debate over the names of these schools began following the killing of George Floyd&nbsp;on May 25 by Minneapolis police.About a week later in Montgomery, on the state's holiday commemorating Confederate President Jefferson Davis' birthday, protesters&nbsp;removed the statue&nbsp;of Confederate Gen. Lee, which faced north in front of Lee High, from its pedestal.&nbsp;The statue, which had been placed in two other Montgomery locations before settling at the school, had always been positioned to face north, in order to watch for enemies, according to a book written about the first decade of Lee High.&nbsp; to change the name of the three schools, gaining nearly 30,000 signatures.&nbsp;More:About 10 community members signed up to speak on the topic ahead of the vote&nbsp;— half requesting the name changes and the other half requesting&nbsp;the district make&nbsp;a distinction between Lanier and the other two schools. They highlighted&nbsp;Lanier's legacy as a poet and musician over his involvement in the Confederate Army. name change was also started.&nbsp;One speaker, Lindsey Shelton, talked about being a descendant of a captain in the Confederacy."As a person whose family’s legacy has been in part defined by my ancestor’s choice to fight for the Confederacy, I will take every opportunity I can to actively work for the removal of Confederate iconography and symbols in public spaces, especially schools," Shelton said, receiving the claps of several others in the audience.&nbsp;"The preservation of these monuments is not the preservation of our history, it is the preservation of the legacy of white supremacy that sustained slavery and continues to deprive Black and indigenous peoples of the respect and dignity they deserve," she continued.&nbsp;Tensions spiked following the public comment section of the meeting, with District 1's Board Member Lesa Keith responding directly to one commenter, a Black woman who is a former student of Keith's at Lee High.&nbsp;"History is not there for you to like or dislike. It is there for you to learn from it. And if it offends you, even better. Because then you are less likely to repeat it. It's not yours to erase. It belongs to all of us," Keith said.&nbsp;In response, the woman asked Keith why she wasn't taught her history, as a Black person, while she was Keith's student.&nbsp;At one point in the debate Keith said, "All lives matter." Several people in the audience responded by yelling, "Black lives matter," before ultimately leaving the meeting. On their way out, Keith said, "Have a good day."Lee was a Confederate military leader,&nbsp;Davis was president of the Confederate States of America and Lanier served as a private in the Confederate Army before later gaining prestige as a poet.A book review of "Brother Sid: A Novel of Sidney Lanier"&nbsp;by Montgomerian May Lamar, Lanier is described as mostly forgotten for decades after his death until, in the 1920s, "The United Daughters of the Confederacy worked to enhance Lanier’s posthumous reputation and succeeded in making him a symbol of the Lost Cause. ... Schoolchildren in the South right up through the 1960s were likely to be taught that Sidney Lanier was the 'Poet of the Confederacy' and were often required to memorize big chunks from 'The Marshes of Glynn' and 'The Song of the Chattahoochee'.”Lanier High was opened in 1910 and moved to its current location on South Court Street in 1929.&nbsp;Months before Lee High was named,&nbsp;the Supreme Court ruled in&nbsp;Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ordering the desegregation of all schools. Lee still opened as all-white in 1955.&nbsp;Black students began attending Lee and Lanier in fall of 1964.In November 1965 —&nbsp;a century after the end&nbsp;of the Civil War —&nbsp;a three-person committee&nbsp;suggested the new Carter Hill Road high school be named, “in memory of Jefferson Davis, the first and last president of the Confederate States of America.”When it came time to vote, District 3's Brenda DeRamus-Coleman, also a graduate of Lanier, noted the debate over who Lanier was and what he stood for. She ultimately decided, she said, that he does not get a pass.&nbsp;"He committed treason. A traitor is a traitor," she said.&nbsp;Like Shelton, Coleman&nbsp;pointed to the calls to remove Confederate monuments by other descendants who "don't want that&nbsp;history celebrated."As Keith continued to protest against, "erasing history," District 6's Claudia Mitchell said "You wouldn't tell a Jewish student to go to a Hitler High."&nbsp;During the meeting, Superintendent Ann Roy Moore said the district will not be held responsible for replacing the statue to its pedestal and will not be fined for it.&nbsp;View Comments

Montgomery AdvertiserView CommentsThe Montgomery County Board of Education voted Tuesday night to change&nbsp;the names of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Sidney Lanier high schools&nbsp;— each named after men who were members of the Confederacy.Each name change was voted on separately, with&nbsp;District 1's Lesa Keith voting against each. Board President Clare Weil also voted against changing the name of Lanier, where she graduated from.&nbsp;The district will now request a waiver to the 2017 Alabama Memorial Preservation Act which prevents the renaming&nbsp;or removal of monuments...

Montgomery school board votes to change the Confederate names of three high schools

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