The names will once again be Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School.
Before the Shenandoah County School Board could make its decision Thursday night to once again name two county schools after Confederate generals, residents from across the county and state made their voices heard, revealing a firm split in how the community views its history and how to move forward.
Over three hours of public comments were made regarding the name change, with 78 individuals making statements to the board. Of those people, 52 spoke against restoring the names, 23 spoke in favor of it and three did not state an opinion but criticized the 2020 school board's process in changing the names from Stonewall Jackson High School to Mountain View High School and from Ashby-Lee Elementary School to Honey Run Elementary School, both in Quicksburg on the southern end of the county. Nine students spoke — six were against restoration of the old names and three were for it.
Tensions simmered throughout the lengthy meeting.
"I've got 35 seconds to sit here and let you all look at me," Glenn Ogle said when his remarks ran short of the two-minute limit each speaker was allotted. "A black man in this community who is telling you that this decision is based on racism and discrimination."
Opponents of the restoring the old names cited the Confederacy's aim to maintain slavery, the link between the original naming of Stonewall Jackson High School and statewide efforts against desegregation in the last 1950s and the potential impact of the name change on today's students, particularly minorities.
Supporters of restoring the former names dismissed claims of racial motivations when the high school was named in 1959, highlighted Stonewall Jackson's leadership qualities and criticized the 2020 school board for what they viewed as manipulative and undemocratic tactics in renaming the schools Mountain View and Honey Run.
"I'm fed up with people lying about how our schools were named. I think it's really rich when people lecture me about morality, but yet excuse the action of the 2020 school board," Virginia Rosen of Edinburg said. "I don't like the name Mountain View; it's generic, and it's boring. Honey Run sounds like the name of a moonshine operation. It's so bad."
Many of the comments grappled with the complicated history of the Confederate-based names. Beau Dickenson, a former American history teacher at Stonewall Jackson High, linked the name to Massive Resistance, a policy from by Virginia's state government to resist desegregation after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling in 1954.
"It was precisely this very moment the Shenandoah County School Board chose to name its name high school after a Confederate general who fought in defense of slavery and states rights," Dickenson said. "If you vote to restore the name of Stonewall Jackson in 2024, you will be resurrecting an act of 1959 that is forever rooted in massive resistance in Jim Crow segregation."
Bill Scott of Woodstock spoke on the questionable legacy of the two individuals the schools are being renamed after.
"Stonewall Jackson, we don't have too many statements from him on it, but we know what he fought for. Turner Ashby led a mob raiding a home of an anti-slavery plantation owner in Clarke County. These are things that this heritage, as we call it, are about," Scott said.
Jonathan Heishman of Edinburg said that Virginia's curriculum states that Stonewall was a positive example of leadership and character.
"If the Commonwealth of Virginia educates our children with these standards, then who are we to question the Commonwealth," he said.
Steve Weaver, a graduate of Stonewall Jackson and a Mount Jackson resident, said he had never experienced racism in the school.
"When I went to school there, I swear I not one time thought about racism at all," said Weaver, who is white. "We had white guys. We had black guys. We didn't think that way."
Stuart Didawick of Edinburg stated that those critical of restoring the names did not represent the true opinion of those who live within the school district, nor are they connected to the culture that defines the communities and the schools.
"Will you listen to the opinions of woke outsiders who, for the most part, have no ties to the land, history and culture of this county or will you listen to the voices of the people who elected you to represent them?" Didawick asked. "The people whose families built and have sustained this county for generations. We are the majority."
Students also expressed a wide range of conflicting opinions.
"I'm a black student and if the name is restored I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves," Aliyah Ogle, an eighth-grade student who plays three sports at Mountain View and takes algebra within the building. "That makes me feel like I'm disrespecting my ancestors and going against what my family and I believe, which is that we should all be treated equally and that slavery was a cruel and awful thing."
Eden Shelhamer, a senior at Central High School and a student at Massanutten Regional Governor's School housed within Mountain View High School, stated the board had been distracted from real and pressing issues due to the debates.
"Is the board aware that in the Mountain View High School girls' bathrooms, there was no hand soap for the entire first semester of the school year?" Shelhamer said. "After a while, they took down the dispensers."
Carter Heishman, a three-sport athlete and member of the FFA at Mountain View, expressed pride in the school's former name.
"I stay very active, and I'd like to wear a name I am proud of," he said. "Not only do I want to have my FFA jacket say Stonewall, but I would also love to have my jerseys say Stonewall, which I wear year-round."
Following the meeting, those attending left in disparate moods.
"I'm ecstatic," Dorian Langston of Mount Jackson said. "It's our heritage. You can't erase it. You can't keep tearing down statues and changing school names."
AD Carter V, a student at Strasburg High School who attends Massanutten Regional Governor's School, questioned why the decision had to be made at all.
"I understand that it was an issue with the process, and I feel like that needs to be corrected," Carter said while walking back to his family's vehicle. "We didn't necessarily have to change the names back to correct what happened."
(39) comments
It should also be mentioned that most of the speakers against restoring the names were brought in from other counties. Non-voters in Shen. Co.The school board listened to the people that put them in office.
Shenandoah county should recheck their history books
The Shenandoah public is NOT deeply divided on renaming the schools after Jackson and Ashby. Poll after poll showed perhaps 80% favor putting the Confederate leaders' names back on the schools. This will be done with private funds, no public funds will be used. As far as racism goes, majority black schools-they do not even have to be majority black-are bastions of anti-White racism. I attended schools in Henrico County that were not majority black but a large minority black and I was routinely harassed due to being White. And doesn't the black community have larger problems among themselves than opposing White people's wish to honor their heritage?
One only needs to look at the photos to see the usual suspects of the local left making the most noise. The physiognomy checks out.
Physiognomy never lies, does it?! Amazing how that goes.
The heritage of being losers??
The White heritage of Losing?
What’s your excuse for being a loser?
80% huh? It sounds like the other 20% need to peace out and get away from the rest of ya'll before you start burning crosses on their lawns and running them up into trees. You know, good ole southern heritage right?
Yeah they should leave. You should go along with them. Try a diverse vibrant area like Newark NJ. Or Baltimore. But you won’t. You hate white people but demand to live around them because it’s safer and better. You know it too. Cry harder!
Where are these polls you’re referring to?
Anti-whites try to ethnically cleanse white southerners and their history. It's excellent to see the latter standing up to that. Whites should be able to shape their own destiny in their own lands.
Why are you proud of being slave owners?
Hallelujah! What bald does your klavern meet on agayn? Will co-cola be provided as refreshments?
Yeah, we get it. You’ve posted the same reply to every comment.
What are you doing naming yourself after a Clint Eastwood character?? A real pro-confederate American man would have picked a John Wayne character! I bet you came up with that name wearing a dress didn't you?
Actually, he fashions himself after another Clint Eastwood character, Dirty Harry, inasmuch as he carries a badge and gun.
Funny how that’s an insult in your mind, I bet you support the rainbow mafia and probably engage in their festivities, yet you’re trying to use it as an insult towards others! You’re not so woke, are you? Better prepare for the software update, NPC comrade! You’re going to be canceled, intolerant bigot!
Why are we celebrating losers by naming schools after defeated Confederates??
Because they are bitter old white southerners, you would probably be upset as well if your heros were all such pathetic losers.
It’s “heroes”. Maybe take a look in the mirror to see a pathetic loser crybaby. Keep seething at the existence of white people, we all know exactly how much you hate us and want to “get rid” of us. Won’t happen though. Keep crying about it!
The community and board made their choice here cling to desperate 'heritage' and whether they admit it or not, it is meant as a signal as to who is welcome and who is not. And that's fine, I get the message loud and clear. At the end of the day we need to focus on the big picture here. The civil war ended 159 years ago and it ended in a resounding loss for the Confederacy and the bankrupt ideals they were fighting for. The hero these people are fighting to tooth and nail to cling to for 'heritage', they were losers. Some of the biggest losers in American history and some of you still can't give it up. Speaks to a persons character that is fer sure.
Cool, then get the message and leave. But you won’t, you’ll whine about democracy when it doesn’t go your way, and throw tantrums online because people aren’t doing what you want. Stay mad!!
I expect to see every one of you bellyaching mother fuckers donate to the schools, and their programs! There should be some decent uniforms, and camps for our kids.
My daughter started her freshman year as it being Mountain View, and has to now graduate from your glorified Confederate, slap in the face. I would pull her if I could. She’s thankfully in Gov School, so she doesn’t have to cope with the ignorance of the individuals gloating like the racist trash they are.
This better mean a CHANGE in how you conduct yourselves at their games, and competitions.
I don't think this board and the inbreds who elected them are interested in education, they are much more concerned with vengeance politics at anyone who would dare to challenge their white superiority complex and 'heritage' of being descendants of treasonous slave owning losers.
More anti white racism, what a surprise. Maybe you should educate yourself about what demographics are actually inbred. It isn’t whites! You don’t seem to like getting thwarted in your white hatred and your attempts to force your anti white agenda on white people, but too bad! Be sure to call some more names (that don’t affect anyone in the slightest), maybe throw a tantrum and stamp your feet in impotent rage! You and your vengeance politics are getting some push back and boy does it make you mad that whites won’t just roll over and do what you want, because you called us racist, white supremacists, or any other puerile and ineffective names. Here, educate yourself:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0906079106#:~:text=Currently%2C%20couples%20related%20as%20second,%2C%20central%2C%20and%20south%20Asia.
What ever happened to “Shenandoah Forward” and all the money they were raising? Did the kids see any of that?
A good example of tolerance and inclusion you provide, talk about ignorance. This right here everyone shows the truth.
The only tolerance is to their groupthink.
Waaaah waaaaah cry harder. Too bad you won’t take your daughter out of the school, I bet she’s unpopular and a crybaby woke tuuuurd like you. California seems like a better fit for you, honestly.
There is no doubt that Mountain View high school was originally built for White's only. That fact is in the schoolboard records and the records of the board of supervisors at the time. These are historical facts, just the same as the ones that prove Lee, Jackson and Ashby were White supremacists and traitors to the US, killing 360,000 American soldiers in a war the South started at Fort Sumter.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Just like the Founding Fathers were traitors to the British Crown. Nobody cares about name calling, the schools are going to be changed back to their original names and you can stay mad about it.
I’ve never seen so many sensitive people before everyone upset over stuff our great great great grandparents did like are YOU a slave? Am I a slave owner no, no we are not.. let the past stay in the past and leave historical monuments alone and instead of thinking of it as racial problem that stuff is done and over with and has been for a very long time and if you really want to know I went to school in Louisa county for a year which was a school with a majority of black people and the year I was there I experienced quite a lot of racial bullying for being white but it’s okay if they do it right? Which one are you the pot or the kettle? Everyone just needs to learn to let it go, mind YOUR business, and live your lives. Period,
Now that the statues have been removed and the bases & schools have been renamed, tell me how your life has improved. Can't believe we don't have world peace after changing the name on schools, pancake boxes and syrup bottles.CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME HOW PANCAKE SYRUP, MOVIES, BOOKS, STATUES, LOGOS AND BUILDING NAMES WEREN'T RACIST WHEN OBAMA WAS PRESIDENT? PEOPLE ARE TEARING DOWN STATUES OF PEOPLE WHO OWNED SLAVES HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO
WHILE WEARING SHOES AND CLOTHING MADE BY SLAVES TODAY IN OTHER COUNTRIES. There was once a time when the President was honored Police were respected, Newborns were treasured, Veterans were revered, And God was worshiped. Let's bring that back...
The only explanation is coordinated destruction.
Do you have really have the sads because your terrible corn syrup based fake maple syrup doesn't come in a slave shaped bottle anymore? What is the obsession with backwards peckerwood's turning black people into stupid and stereotypical symbols? I guess it probably comes right down to ingrained stupid learned prejudice and ignored education, except for the fake history part where you claim that confederate generals were 'heroes' instead of admitting that they were loser scumbags.
Those are certainly all words.
I like how you cry about racism yet you’re using nasty racist names for white people. Really shows you for exactly what you are. A racist white hating scumbag. Cry harder though, the schools are going to be renamed and there’s nothing you can do about it but throw your little tantrums online! Seethe and cope, buddy. Seethe and cope!
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