Several years ago, this publication printed a series of articles pointing out ways that racist ideas and concepts are embedded in our system and are difficult to change, especially in the South.
One of those ways is to memorialize racist ideas by building monuments and shrines. Included in this method is the naming of public facilities after people who exemplify less than UnAmerican values or represent ideas that do not represent the times in which we live.
We took issue with the Northeast State University’s former mantra, the “Northeast Indians.” We also took issue with the West Monroe Rebels mascot and the naming of Robert E. Lee Jr. High School after an American traitor.
Students led protests against the “Indian” Athletic mascot at the University but were labeled troublemakers. The Dominant culture saw nothing wrong with promoting Native Americans as savages who scalped and killed randomly.
Students, led by the late Cliff Riley, protested the West Monroe Rebel Mascot. At the time, the school had a giant rebel soldier statue on its grounds, and a Rebel Flag painted on its hallway. Its band uniforms were replicas of the Confederate military uniforms, and a uniformed Rebel Soldier rode around the stadium on a horse as the band played Dixie.
One of the most egregious insults to our nation in Monroe is the naming of Robert E. Lee Jr. High School, a Southern hero, but American traitor, whose leadership of Southern armies during the Civil War against the Union resulted in over 600, 000 deaths.
ULM resisted all efforts to stop insulting Native Americans until they received an edict from the NCAA that demanded that the insulting mascot be changed. Thus, in 1999 the University’s mascot became the Warhawks.
In West Monroe, the school retains the “Rebel” mascot but has removed the flag, statue, Dixie, and the soldier on the horse. They still maintain the Confederate colors and name “Rebels.” If there were Confederate soldiers, who waved the Confederate flag, who fought in the Confederate army, the question is, “who were these soldiers rebelling against?” The United States Government.
Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest military leaders of American history. He is often described as an officer and a Southern gentleman, but he fought against the United States.
The Constitution says persons who engage in an “Act of War” against the United States are traitors. That makes Lee a hero to the South, but an American traitor. He was spared execution as a traitor only by the generosity of General Ulysses S. Grant.
Lee was the owner of sixty slaves when the Civil War began, and he led the Southern States in a War to maintain a states’ right to maintain slavery as an institution if it pleased to do so.
It’s no doubt that Robert E. Lee, while loved by those who idolize “old times” in the South, was an American traitor.
Across the country, communities are renaming schools and buildings named after Civil War Leaders, including school’s named after Robert E. Lee.
In Richmond, Virginia, home of the capital of the Confederacy, a school named after Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart was renamed “Barack Obama Elementary in 2019.
If Lee Jr. High School is named after a traitor, what are students at the school taught about the school’s namesake? Is he an American hero or traitor? If he is a hero, why did he fight against the United States? If he is a traitor to the United States, why do we honor him?
Systemic racism is embedded in the system and often etched in stone. It is hard to change because it requires those who embrace the racist concept to take charge and lead the way of change.
It’s time for the Rebels to get a new mascot, and it’s also time for Robert E. Lee’s name to take its place in the museum of American tragedies.
