On October 17th, ThinkProgress published the article "KKK Battles With Town Over Renaming School Named For Klan Founder". In this article, author Annie-Rose Strasser intends to make the residents of Jacksonville, Florida aware that maintaining a high school named after a KKK Grand Wizard sends a strong message to the rest of the country. After the integration law Brown v Board of Education passed, in 1959 school administrators renamed the school to Nathan B. Forrest, a KKK Grand Wizard, to show that they were displeased with the ruling. It was a Jacksonville resident, who started a petition on Change.org to ask the Duval County School Board to change the name. Only about four years ago, the same request failed with a 5 to 2 vote against it, but with the help of change.org 150,000 signatures have been gathered which caught the attention of the board. Even with growing support, the petition's author is facing a group of opponents, the KKK. They argue that Forrest is a honorable man and that the Klan is "protecting defenseless southerners from criminal activities perpetrated by Yankee carpet baggers, scalawags, and many bestial blacks...". The school's superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti responds by saying that the name sends a wrong message to the African-American community and plans on opening up a town hall community discussion to further talk about the issue sometime this month.
I agree that keeping the name of the high school sends a bad message to every African-American community across the United States. It's disrespectful looking at how much racism and discrimination they had to face. It's not fair towards students that will constantly be reminded of what crimes the Klan has committed against their ancestors. If the name change won't occur, people will recognize Jacksonville as a city that's still narrow-minded to this day and being the largest, reflecting the rest of Florida. I feel like this issue might have an effect on how Florida will be perceived in the future.