The school board in Jacksonville, Florida will decide next week whether to change the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School to Firestone High, stripping the name of the Confederate general off the majority African-American school.
As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes, there’s been a backlash in the South against taking the name of Confederate leaders off of schools. However, Forrest made his fortune as a plantation owner and slave trader; his resume includes a role as an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1867, the newly formed Klan elected Forrest its honorary Grand Wizard or national leader, but publicly denied being involved. In 1869, he ordered the Klan to disband because of the members’ increasing violence. Two years later, a congressional investigation concluded his involvement had been limited to his attempt to disband it.
One wonders what Jay Greene would make of this. Jay famously made a study of school names that showed just how controversy-averse school naming has become. He discovered that more schools in Florida were named for manatees than George Washington.
A school name is an opportunity for a community to communicate its values to its children. So, I have no problem with a school name being changed if they find that the name deviates from the fundamental values that the community wishes to promote. My problem is with the selection of names that don’t particularly mean anything to anybody. Conlfict-averse school boards are increasingly drawn to names that sound more like herbal teas or day spas precisely because they are perfectly innocuous and do not represent any values.
Of course, I would also have a problem with changing a name based on an inaccurate understanding of history or an understanding that lacked proper historical perspective and balance.
I don’t know enough about Forrest to say whether they have a proper understanding of him. But I sure hope that Firestone means something to that community.