Robert E. Lee

Virginia has removed from its iconic state capitol the busts and a statue honoring Confederate generals and officials. That includes a bronze statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee positioned in the same spot where he stood to assume command of the state’s armed forces in the Civil War nearly 160 years ago.

President Donald Trump didn’t move his rally because he cares about Juneteenth — what should be a national holiday. He moved his hate rally from Friday to Saturday because he wants Black voters to support him in November. Nevertheless, Trump already knows he’s going to lose the Black vote by a landslide. He’s not that dumb. So what’s his true reasoning for moving the rally?   

A top official in the Virginia city where a white nationalist rally erupted in violence in 2017 has called for renewing discussions about removing two Confederate statues, one of which became the focus of the rally.

What if Robert E. Lee Elementary School was named after Tulsa’s distinguished American historian, John Hope Franklin? It is not a far-fetched idea if you think about it. It is a thought that reinforces this need for reconciliation.

The ramifications in allowing the name of a person who protected and promoted white supremacy, white power, a Ku Klux Klan mentality, and Nazism — all racist ideologies at their core the same — to remain on the side of a public school building is detrimental to race relations for the city and the nation.

The SPLC’s report chronicles the timeline of the namings and finds that there are two distinct time periods wherein these schools were named.  The first was during the rise of Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws throughout the south and at the time of the Tulsa Race Massacre in Greenwood. The second was immediately following the Supreme Court’s decision of Brown v. Board.

OPINION BY | Nehemiah D. Frank 

Let us be frank: renaming Robert E. Lee Elementary School “Lee School” is a lash on the back of every African-American student attending a Tulsa public school, which is alarming considering 25 percent of TPS’ total student population is composed of African-American pupils. 

TPS may as well remount the “No Colored” signs and command all the Negro students, Negro teachers, and Negro staff to ignore the symbol that acknowledges, values, and promotes white superiority in a 21st-century integrated educational setting.