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A Virginia county board votes to restore Confederates' names to schools

The school board meeting stretched into early Friday. During the debate, a Black student athlete told the board, "I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves."
Mountain View High School will soon be known by its former name: Stonewall Jackson High School. The Shenandoah County School Board voted 5-1 to once again honor the Confederate general, whose name was originally attached to the school during the battle over racial segregation.

The Shenandoah County School Board in Virginia will restore the names of Confederate generals Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby to two local schools. The controversial reversal comes nearly four years after the names were changed.

Mountain View High School will revert to its former name, Stonewall Jackson High School, and Honey Run Elementary School will go back to being Ashby-Lee Elementary School.

The board approved the change by a 5-1 vote, with supporters saying the Confederate figures' names had been taken off the schools in 2020 in a "knee-jerk" reaction amid protests of George Floyd's murder by police. But opponents — including some current students — warned the board that the Confederate

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