If you remove all signs of history you don’t like, does that erase the history itself? No. Of course not. But feelings.
But the SJW’s are definitely attempting to do just that. They won their battle with the “Confederate Flag” and successfully bullied states and stores into removing it. Monuments are starting to be removed that have any link the the old racist south, and now schools are being renamed. But at what cost?
As the saying goes, “Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. I wonder if that is the ultimate goal? If future generations are not taught state’s rights or how a group of people became slaves, will it not be easier to skirt state’s rights and to enslave groups of people?
Houston ISD is changing the names of seven schools with names tied to the Confederacy.
- Lee High School to Margaret Long Wisdom High School
- Albert Sidney Johnston Middle School to Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts Middle School
- Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson Middle School to Yolanda Black Navarro Middle School of Excellence
- John Reagan High School to Heights High School
- Richard Dowling Middle School to Audrey H. Lawson Middle School
- Sidney Lanier Middle School to Bob Lanier Middle School
- Jefferson Davis High School to Northside High School
Most of the original names I recognize because thankfully I went to school in a time where they still taught history. However I did not recognize any of the new names unless they were related to a particular neighborhood.
So I started researching. Who are these people so worthy of having schools renamed after them at the cost of half a million dollars per school! I guess Houston kids have everything they need at school so they won’t miss the nearly $2,000,000.00 being spent on this project. (If you have children in HISD and your fall school supply list includes kleenex and hand sanitizer, you should send a kindly worded letter reminding them that 2 million would have bought a lot of germ catchers.) But anyway, here’s a few things I found.
Instead of teaching children that Sidney Lanier was an American poet, musician, and author who happened to have fought for the Confederacy, these children will now learn that Bob Lanier was the mayor of Houston, loved FDR, made his living as a lawyer, a banker, and a real estate developer, and won the white vote. Nah, just kidding. They’ll just learn that FDR was so awesome that Bob modeled his politics after him.
Richard Dowling, who fled Ireland during the first year of the Great Famine, was a well known entrepreneur first in New Orleans then in Houston. (He left New Orleans due to political wins by the Know Nothing Party which were anti-Irish.) He also fought for the Confederacy. His school name replacement is Audrey Lawson who managed to get a college degree in the 1950s, start a church and a theater group in Houston. All of that she accomplished while being black in the oh-so-racist south.
“Stonewall” Jackson, who in spite of growing up poor with little education, fought his way into West Point and served the rest of his days in the military. He fought in the Mexican-American War and taught at the Virginia Military Institute before fighting for the Confederacy where he died from an infection from a wound received in battle. His replacement is Yolanda Black Navarro. She was a community organizer in Houston and was one of the founders of the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans (AAMA). She believed Mexican Americans needed some extra help here in Texas. I can see how she thought we Texans were super anti-Mexican American since she wanted to open her own restaurant, but being Mexican American prevented her from doing that. Oh wait. No it didn’t.
And then there’s Lee. Oh boy. That super-villain Lee. Career military man. Fought in the Mexican-American War and then became Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point before fighting for the Confederacy. His replacement is Margaret Long Wisdom. A teacher.
That’s it. No longer will the children of Houston have to live in fear of attending schools with the names of the bad bad men. I sincerely hope these two million dollar name changes make the city of Houston sleep easier tonight.
