JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Reuters) - A north Florida school board has voted unanimously to change the name of a local high school honoring a Confederate general who made a fortune as a slave trader and was linked to the Ku Klux Klan. "It's time to move forward with the renaming of Nathan B. Forrest High ... it's time to really put it to bed," said School Board member Constance Hall, who asked the Board to finally begin the process of changing the name on Friday.
Hall and the board's other African American member were joined in the 7-0 vote by four whites and a Hispanic member in voting to change the name.
Four Jacksonville schools are named after Confederate heroes, including Robert E. Lee High School, as well as the city's downtown square.
The school's name was chosen in 1959 at the suggestion of the Daughters of the Confederacy as the group readied for the 100th anniversary of Florida joining the Confederacy, at the start of the Civil War that pitted the pro-slavery southern states against President Abraham Lincoln and the Union army.
Changing the name of Nathan B. Forrest High School has come up several times. In 2008, the vote to keep the name broke along racial lines with two black members voting to change the name and five white board members voting against.
This time, a Jacksonville parent, Omotayo Richmond, took up the cause on social media with a change.org petition signed by more than 176,000 people, generating widespread media coverage and support from civil rights groups.
"Now is the time to right a historical wrong. African-American Jacksonville students shouldn't have to attend a high school named for someone who slaughtered and terrorized their ancestors for one more school year," Richmond wrote in his petition appeal.
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Poster Comment:
From another forum:
"Finally, we can expect to see minority children learn more now that their school no longer honors a Southern hero. The minorities in that school will undoubtedly see their self-esteem go through the roof. More important, the black-white performance gap will disappear, since everyone knows it was being perpetuated by nothing more than the name of the school they attended."