Last Updated on May 23, 2022
The school board in Shenandoah County, Virginia is considering plans to restore the names of three Confederate heroes to the local schools they were removed from in 2020, amidst the left’s rapid erasure of American history.
As left-wing mobs tore down monuments to American history and memorials dedicated to her war dead throughout 2020, the Shenandoah County School Board voted without consulting their constituents to change the names of two local schools named for three of Virginia’s most revered Confederate officers. Following a hurried vote, the county’s Stonewall Jackson High School became known as Mountain View, and Turner-Ashby Elementary School, which was named in honor of both General Robert E. Lee and cavalry commander Turner Ashby, became known as Honey Run.
A petition to restore the schools’ historic names is now circulating in the community and has been signed by over 4,000 people, leading the school board, which has three first-term members following recent elections, to take the issue up for consideration. At least one board member has been openly receptive to the idea, while Vice Chair Dennis Barlow has criticized the name-change process as “undemocratic and unfair.”
At a recent board meeting, citizens of Shenandoah County packed the meeting room to advocate for the restoration of American history, with speakers reminding all present of the central role the county and its surrounding region of the Shenandoah Valley played in the Civil War. One speaker recounted the story of how General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson earned his nickname while in command of men from the Shenandoah Valley at the First Battle of Manassas, remarking that while other areas can debate the relevance of Confederate names and mascots, Shenandoah County has a unique historical tie to the Civil War and the Confederacy that cannot be replicated.
“There stands Jackson like a stone wall, rally behind the Virginians,” the speaker recounted Confederate General Bernard Bee saying of Jackson and his men at the First Battle of Manassas, going on to detail the moment in history’s deep connection to Shenandoah County and the name of one of its high schools.
“The guys that stood on that hill with Stonewall Jackson that day, at the top of the Henry House hill, were the boys from Shenandoah County,” the speaker said, going on to detail that 52 men from the area “gave the full measure of devotion that day, on that hill,” and in the process, “they won a name for that guy.”
“That name belongs to Shenandoah County,” he said.
Watch the full Shenandoah County School Board meeting below:
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