IF YOU’VE NOT ALREADY HEARD, the Kanawha County Board of Education in Charleston WV voted unanimously to rename Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Charleston WV yesterday. A public process for re-naming the school will be discussed at their next meetup. In a few days, we’ll be posting a 10-minute, mini-doc video, “Bye-Bye, Stonewall,” on the years-long effort to rename the school, a collaborative effort that finally bore fruit. Subscribe here or below to our free newsletter (below) for a heads up on the video’s release.
Meanwhile, we direct your amusement to this Tiffany Thouartdope Finkton insta-rap (above). She made it after capturing a special moment outside the BOE office, from a fellow who arrived with a Confederate flag. He was definitely not reading the room.
PS: Tiffany is a poet of the spoken word. Check out her work at: instagram.com/thou_art_dope
PSS: Here are three pleased faces after the Kanawha County Board of Education voted 5-0 to rename the middle school: Kitty Dooley, Takieya Smith, and Suzanne Gregg Ferguson. Dr. Ferguson is among several folk instrumental in the school name change and, in fact, wrote her PhD. thesis on the topic that powered the effort to ditch Stonewall Jackson’s name: “The perceptions and effects of school’s names on black professional educators and their students.”
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VIEW FROM THE PLAYGROUND: On Changing Stonewall Jackson Middle School’s Name: As adults decide the future of Stonewall Jackson Middle School’s name at meeting Monday, July 6, 2020, we visited a playground in Charleston WV to find out what a group of students thought about the idea.
POINTS of VIEW | ‘If You’re Silent About Your Pain’: A LETTER TO NEUTRAL COLLEAGUES: “I realize you may be actually confused about whether blacks are offended or feel pain from reminders of that dark period. Zora Neale Neale Hurston once said: “If you’re silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” So, I will clarify that we are offended. We are in pain.”
‘ALEXANDRIA SPEAKS’: Why Stonewall Jackson Middle School Needs a New Name: Why rename a school long named for a Confederate general? Watch a 13-year-old student in Charleston WV tell why in an impassioned plea to the adults considering whether to rename her Stonewall Jackson Middle School.
