After George Floyd was murdered by police over a $20 bill in May 2020, for a brief moment the U.S. seemed like it might be ready to grapple with the generations of racial injustices and violence it has perpetrated.
As part of that wave,
60 school districts around the country changed the names of their schools to reflect this consciousness - and to finally stop honoring the racists and bigots they'd previously been named for. Now, two schools in Virginia are
intentionally undoing this progress, actively choosing to rename their schools after Confederate leaders from the Civil War... again. This is disgusting and indefensible. Sign the petition to demand that Shenandoah County, Virginia reverse this racist decision! This all happened after a group wrote to the Shenandoah County school board claiming that celebrating the Confederate leaders' names were
"essential to honor our community's heritage." They went on to call Confederate military leaders
"heroes." But these people were not heroes.
They were traitors to their country, who defected in order to fight to the death in defense of racist cruelty. They helped to wage a war that claimed
up to 850,000 lives, all to uphold a system of selling humans as chattel.
What's going on in Virginia could start a dangerous precedent.
This is deeply insulting to the Black students and parents who are going to have to live with such horrible changes. If we're not careful, more school districts could decide that they want to reaffirm their love for violently bigoted traitors more than they want to care about their BIPOC neighbors.
Schools are where our children learn what to value and how to make sense of the world around them.
We can't teach them the lesson that what's going on in Shenandoah is okay. Honoring human rights must matter more than celebrating militant racists. That is the lesson our children should learn - not to go running back to the Confederacy as though that era contains anything other than shame.
Sign the petition now to show Shenandoah County that the world is watching! It must stop elevating Confederate leaders as "heroes" and reverse its terrible school renaming decision!