For decades, students in Hanover County, Virginia have been forced to attend schools bearing the names of Confederate leaders. References to the Confederacy permeate the entire school experience. School team names identify them with the Confederacy; Lee-Davis High School is home to the “Confederates” and Stonewall Jackson Middle School to the “Rebels”. The image of Confederate generals appear on banners at school events and graduation. The schools’ mottos evince support for the Confederacy. In these ways and others, all students at those schools are forced to glorify the Confederacy and its leadership, which are inextricably intertwined with the history of slavery in America and today are used as symbols of racial oppression.
Students and alumni of Lee-Davis High School and Stonewall Jackson Middle School, along with their families and community, have been urging the Hanover County School Board to change the racist names since the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville two years ago; the School Board has refused. Today, the Hanover County Unit of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is suing the County and the School Board to change the names, change the school team names and take other steps to address a climate that denies African American students an equal education.
The Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and Covington & Burling LLP represent the Hanover County Unit of the NAACP and its members in this case.
For more information, read our Press Release.