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Virginia school board votes to restore Confederate names to two schools
- Thread starter Don2 (Don1 Revised)
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Honoring traitors is an odd form of historical preservation. Seems more like whitewashing history by treating them as heroes that were protecting their state from foreign attack. That school board is fostering ignorance. You have it quite backwards.
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JFC! Really???
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
You mean to say "preservation of the practice of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow."
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
They should just call it Jim Crow Area Schools.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
Correct. They were just as enslaved as the blacks. Actually they were even more enslaved. The blacks didn't and were not allowed to fight. And if you owned enough slaves you were exempted from the draft.
So the real niggers were the drafted whities having to go fight for the plantation owners.
TomC
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Do you realize that the Union soldiers were also drafted?
While the Confederate soldiers were defending themselves and their homes and families.
Do you honestly think that all those northern boys went to fight for the black niggers? Risk their lives for people that they wouldn't let move to their own town?
I don't think so.
Tom
ETA ~Do you realize that the Union draft allowed draftees to hire somebody to take their place? Lots of the Union soldiers were poor dudes paid to take the place of a rich kid ~
Elixir
Made in America
And now they want reparations.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
And slavery. Correct?
TomC
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I don't know, but I doubt it.
I also doubt that the invaders were doing it to rescue black folks who they despised.
I think they were doing it for reasons similar to why a bunch of Americans went to Vietnam and Iraq.
Tom
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
Down The Historical Rabbit Hole (or alternatively Be Ready to be Creeped Out)
So I wanted to find out more about Stonewall Jackson High School because often the dedications or christenings of these types of Lost Cause memorials contain ideological text in the form of a speech or plaque etc etc. The method for looking into this was to find out when the school was named and then research newspaper articles to see if any statements were made by groups like Daughters of the Confederacy at the time of the original name change and to try to find photos of the school that might have plaques and messaging... I ended up obtaining neither of these as they could not be found, but I did get some interesting, though very creepy, information I wanted to share. It's a little bit off the topic but provides some sub-text and is relevant to the current sub-thread topic of preservation of history.
So, first, here is a little background from digging on when the school was built and when a name was assigned:
I was able to find a few newspaper articles in the timeframe 1959 to 1962 regarding the principal Thomas L Snyder as well as mention of the school and other schools in the county. Here is some text from two articles.
The Roanoke Times. Thursday, Jun 02, 1960. Roanoke, VA. Vol:147. Page:40
NORFOLK LEDGER-DISPATCH The Portsmouth Star. Friday, Aug 31, 1962. Norfolk, VA. Page:49.
These articles provide some historical context to when the school was constructed and named. Brown v Board of Ed ruling occurred in 1954, but pushback and desegregation took a lot longer. There were still schools in the 1960s that had refused integration. Without going into all of that, consider integration and segregation as opposing ideological forces in the timeframe of the 1950s to 1960s when the school was constructed and named and when these articles were written.
The two articles are related in some other ways. Statistically, it has been shown that the erection of Confederate monuments peaked during JIm Crow laws, perhaps as a reaction to pushback of their immorality, a kind of doubling down or denial. But again, there was another resurgence, this time in naming schools during the period of time when segregation was questioned and desegregation was sought. So we might infer that the school was named Stonewall Jackson High School in a manner to double down on the denialism and pushback during desegregation. A statement that white people are in control and that they are honorable.
The snippet from the first article may be difficult to understand, especially its relevance. Recall that Stonewall Jackson High School was constructed in 1959, not formally dedicated til April 1960 for some reason. The article snippet from June 1960 is not directly about Stonewall Jackson High School, but instead that politicians had used the school as a public building to have a hearing. Their meeting involved efforts to create a memorial park dedicated to Civil War memories and this is where Lost Cause ideology and so-called "preservation of history" rears its head.
The first paragraph in the snippet discusses a monument dedicated to the charge of the VMI cadets. I never heard of this before, but upon research, I found that during the Civil War, a battalion of Virginia Military Institute cadets had been ordered to fight. They joined forces with a larger contingent of Confederates and won a battle. Some died and are glorified as heroes.
It appears that the idea of the memorial park and the monument has extended over time to other things. Besides a museum, there is now also an annual ceremony dedicated to the Confederates at the Battle of New Market:
Note the language: "Honor."
The profiles of the cadets aged 15-25 years of age contain glorifications.
One cadet's name was William "Hugh" McDowell. He was 17, nearly 18, when he was killed in battle. Allegedly on the "Field of Honor." This one gets interesting because there is a children's book about him called Ghost Cadet.
The basics of the book is that Hugh is a ghost cadet who had put his gold watch somewhere before battle then died in battle. It was a family heirloom and so he is haunted/haunting because he needs to restore his family honor by having his family get the gold watch back. He needs to restore his family's honor by restoring the golden watch to family heirs. Think about what is being said here.
Here are two snippets from opposing reviews of the children's book about this ghost cadet.
5 star review:
Emphasis added.
1 star review:
Emphasis added.
While this is a little anecdotal, notice that reviewer#1 says he is from Shenandoah County where Stonewall Jackson High School is. He was required to read the book that allegedly whitewashed the history, that transforms the idea of what honor is, that contains some snippets of Lost Cause ideology. All that said, I think the author of the book probably is NOT a Neo-Confederate but she was writing how she imagined people talked and thought and it was more about making a buck and making a ghost story than promoting Lost Cause ideology, but there it is. It isn't like she forced the county school board to make it required reading and forced people to think of it as a history lesson.
What really is the history of William Hugh McDowell, the ghost cadet? I took a look at his ancestry quickly. From Wikipedia:
His father was Robert Irvin McDowell of Beattie's Ford, North Carolina. You can take a look at the 1860 Slave Schedule here and here. Yes, Robert Irvin/Irwin McDowell owned so many enslaved people that it went onto the next page, 58 enslaved persons in all. While it doesn't make sense to automatically determine that his son William Hugh was abusive of enslaved people, consider some things. He was a teenager living at home with so-called property and we do not know whether he would have been kind, mean, moody, abusive, perverse, or whatever to all these people who were legally his father's property and had to obey his orders as well.
What we do know is that he went to the Virginia Military Institute and fought in the Civil War as he almost turned 18. And we do know that in the fictional story, his ghost is trying to restore his family's honor, not by apologizing or making some kind of gesture, but instead by finding a gold watch. And somehow Ghost Cadet is required reading in the county where he died in battle.
In case you are curious, the gold watch is real and you can see that from reading the mother's letter. A snippet from his mother's letter, dated July 25th, 1864:
Yankee rule means ending the slavery she was protecting. But that isn't all...here. If you click the link and read the recommendation from Mary Ann Jackson, Stonewall Jackson's wife, you will find that William Hugh's mother was Stonewall's wife's cousin. In 1863, she ASKED Stonewall Jackson's wife to give her son a recommendation to join VMI as a cadet. This is because she wanted him to fight in the war that was already going on in 1863, but she wanted him to be trained first.
Note the words: "...take all that are dear to me & myself before we ever bend to yankee rule."
So her son is a martyr now for the Lost Cause, but the creepy story doesn't end with the martyr's death and his fictional ghost.
It is only the beginning...
So I wanted to find out more about Stonewall Jackson High School because often the dedications or christenings of these types of Lost Cause memorials contain ideological text in the form of a speech or plaque etc etc. The method for looking into this was to find out when the school was named and then research newspaper articles to see if any statements were made by groups like Daughters of the Confederacy at the time of the original name change and to try to find photos of the school that might have plaques and messaging... I ended up obtaining neither of these as they could not be found, but I did get some interesting, though very creepy, information I wanted to share. It's a little bit off the topic but provides some sub-text and is relevant to the current sub-thread topic of preservation of history.
So, first, here is a little background from digging on when the school was built and when a name was assigned:
I was able to find a few newspaper articles in the timeframe 1959 to 1962 regarding the principal Thomas L Snyder as well as mention of the school and other schools in the county. Here is some text from two articles.
The Roanoke Times. Thursday, Jun 02, 1960. Roanoke, VA. Vol:147. Page:40
NORFOLK LEDGER-DISPATCH The Portsmouth Star. Friday, Aug 31, 1962. Norfolk, VA. Page:49.
These articles provide some historical context to when the school was constructed and named. Brown v Board of Ed ruling occurred in 1954, but pushback and desegregation took a lot longer. There were still schools in the 1960s that had refused integration. Without going into all of that, consider integration and segregation as opposing ideological forces in the timeframe of the 1950s to 1960s when the school was constructed and named and when these articles were written.
The two articles are related in some other ways. Statistically, it has been shown that the erection of Confederate monuments peaked during JIm Crow laws, perhaps as a reaction to pushback of their immorality, a kind of doubling down or denial. But again, there was another resurgence, this time in naming schools during the period of time when segregation was questioned and desegregation was sought. So we might infer that the school was named Stonewall Jackson High School in a manner to double down on the denialism and pushback during desegregation. A statement that white people are in control and that they are honorable.
The snippet from the first article may be difficult to understand, especially its relevance. Recall that Stonewall Jackson High School was constructed in 1959, not formally dedicated til April 1960 for some reason. The article snippet from June 1960 is not directly about Stonewall Jackson High School, but instead that politicians had used the school as a public building to have a hearing. Their meeting involved efforts to create a memorial park dedicated to Civil War memories and this is where Lost Cause ideology and so-called "preservation of history" rears its head.
The first paragraph in the snippet discusses a monument dedicated to the charge of the VMI cadets. I never heard of this before, but upon research, I found that during the Civil War, a battalion of Virginia Military Institute cadets had been ordered to fight. They joined forces with a larger contingent of Confederates and won a battle. Some died and are glorified as heroes.
It appears that the idea of the memorial park and the monument has extended over time to other things. Besides a museum, there is now also an annual ceremony dedicated to the Confederates at the Battle of New Market:
Note the language: "Honor."
The profiles of the cadets aged 15-25 years of age contain glorifications.
One cadet's name was William "Hugh" McDowell. He was 17, nearly 18, when he was killed in battle. Allegedly on the "Field of Honor." This one gets interesting because there is a children's book about him called Ghost Cadet.
The basics of the book is that Hugh is a ghost cadet who had put his gold watch somewhere before battle then died in battle. It was a family heirloom and so he is haunted/haunting because he needs to restore his family honor by having his family get the gold watch back. He needs to restore his family's honor by restoring the golden watch to family heirs. Think about what is being said here.
Here are two snippets from opposing reviews of the children's book about this ghost cadet.
5 star review:
Emphasis added.
1 star review:
Emphasis added.
While this is a little anecdotal, notice that reviewer#1 says he is from Shenandoah County where Stonewall Jackson High School is. He was required to read the book that allegedly whitewashed the history, that transforms the idea of what honor is, that contains some snippets of Lost Cause ideology. All that said, I think the author of the book probably is NOT a Neo-Confederate but she was writing how she imagined people talked and thought and it was more about making a buck and making a ghost story than promoting Lost Cause ideology, but there it is. It isn't like she forced the county school board to make it required reading and forced people to think of it as a history lesson.
What really is the history of William Hugh McDowell, the ghost cadet? I took a look at his ancestry quickly. From Wikipedia:
His father was Robert Irvin McDowell of Beattie's Ford, North Carolina. You can take a look at the 1860 Slave Schedule here and here. Yes, Robert Irvin/Irwin McDowell owned so many enslaved people that it went onto the next page, 58 enslaved persons in all. While it doesn't make sense to automatically determine that his son William Hugh was abusive of enslaved people, consider some things. He was a teenager living at home with so-called property and we do not know whether he would have been kind, mean, moody, abusive, perverse, or whatever to all these people who were legally his father's property and had to obey his orders as well.
What we do know is that he went to the Virginia Military Institute and fought in the Civil War as he almost turned 18. And we do know that in the fictional story, his ghost is trying to restore his family's honor, not by apologizing or making some kind of gesture, but instead by finding a gold watch. And somehow Ghost Cadet is required reading in the county where he died in battle.
In case you are curious, the gold watch is real and you can see that from reading the mother's letter. A snippet from his mother's letter, dated July 25th, 1864:
Yankee rule means ending the slavery she was protecting. But that isn't all...here. If you click the link and read the recommendation from Mary Ann Jackson, Stonewall Jackson's wife, you will find that William Hugh's mother was Stonewall's wife's cousin. In 1863, she ASKED Stonewall Jackson's wife to give her son a recommendation to join VMI as a cadet. This is because she wanted him to fight in the war that was already going on in 1863, but she wanted him to be trained first.
Note the words: "...take all that are dear to me & myself before we ever bend to yankee rule."
So her son is a martyr now for the Lost Cause, but the creepy story doesn't end with the martyr's death and his fictional ghost.
It is only the beginning...
I suspect there was a dramatic turnover of the e
school board in the last election to cause such a quick and dramatic reversal. I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg in dumbness to come.
school board in the last election to cause such a quick and dramatic reversal. I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg in dumbness to come.
thebeave
Veteran Member
Please, God...make it stop. I'm inclined to think that from now on we should name schools after, say, trees and rocks and planets or something. As long as we name schools after people there is going to be someone, somewhere who gets their panties in a bunch. Plus, you never know what the future holds for schools named after people, especially living ones. I wonder if there is a Bill Cosby Elementary School somewhere? San Francisco went through a pretty embarrasing episode recently where the school board tried to rename a huge number of schools in the city, because some of the namesakes weren't perfect people. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the plan was scrapped:
San Francisco school board suspends plan to rename schools
Actually, there was a bit of comic relief to the reckless renaming exercise...
hurtinbuckaroo
Veteran Member
So it’s not safe to name them after trees either. And don’t get me started on Pluto Middle School.
San Francisco went through a pretty embarrasing episode recently where the school board tried to rename a huge number of schools in the city, because some of the namesakes weren't perfect people. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the plan was scrapped:
San Francisco school board suspends plan to rename schools
Actually, there was a bit of comic relief to the reckless renaming exercise...
My elementary school had a name (honoring a temperance reformer
) and a number. We could have just used the number.If they want to preserve history they really should be honest and name the whole district “losers of the lost cause” and then name all the schools after the most odious confederates and teach what fucking assholes they were from the Texas secession articles to why they named a school Stonewall Jackson in 1960.
thebeave
Veteran Member
Good catch on the trees. That somehow skipped past me. I guess that just proves we need to use only the English meaning of words for naming. Although it would be amusing to see protesters hitting the streets and shutting down highways protesting against a school name that really just stands for a fucking tree.So it’s not safe to name them after trees either. And don’t get me started on Pluto Middle School.
My elementary school had a name (honoring a temperance reformer
I like the idea of naming schools after numbers. I see that in old movies and TV shows where schools are called P.S. 126, etc. And the kids wear uniforms. And people put priority on educating kids, not on who their school is named after.
marc
Veteran Member
Why is the 'ghost cadet' on that cover black? Another way to deflect from the actual issues of the war, and promote the idea black people fought for the confederacy?
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
I didn't think the Ghost Cadet was Black. I've taken a second look and I see that there are some few features that are associated with Blackness and African Americans. It's kind of weird and more present zoomed out with a smaller image, but most of it could be ascribed to poor art and coincidence and so I don't think it's intentional. For example, the hair may seem very curly but I think this is because it is military short combined with poor resolution of the art form. That the intent may have been just short hair. The skin color may appear to be a shade darker than Benjy's, but I think this is because the art form is a portrayal of a ghost, meaning the ghost being is supposed to be partially transparent and therefore susceptible to the background colors bleeding into the foreground ghost entity's color. So, behind his face is a dark tree and that impacts the shade of his face...but take a look at the hand and you can see the shade is brighter at least in spots.
Here is a method you can use to understand the artist's weird take on the coloration of a ghost.
- Zoom into the image.
- Follow the outline of the giant tree on the right-hand-side. You will note that the tree's outline continues through the ghost. On the left-hand-side of the outline the ghost is shaded darker. On the right-hand-side, it is shaded lighter.
- Follow the bottom and top borders of the stonewall in the background. Follow them to the ghost entity's portrayal. You can see a darker shade of the color of the uniform where the stonewall is behind the ghost.
- Observe some kind of structure below the stonewall in the grass, perhaps a large flat rock. Follow that to the left. You can observe some shading in the uniform where the rock is behind the ghost.
TomC
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Honestly, between the illustration and the description of the cadet as owning a gold watch family heirloom the idea that he was black never entered my mind.
Tom