Virginia county approves restoring names of Confederate leaders to two schools

The school board of Virginia's Shenandoah County voted on Friday to restore the names of two Confederate leaders to two schools.

The decision, a 5-1 vote, reverses a 2020 vote that changed the names amid the racial justice protests that rocked the country following the murder of George Floyd.

The decision was part of a broader trend that saw many authorities take down public Confederate symbols across the country. At least 160 of them were impacted, according to a tally from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The schools will now go back to being named Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School. Their names had been changed to Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School, respectively.

Axios recalled that Turney Ashby was a Confederate cavalry commander who owned enslaved people and advocated for violence against Northern abolitionists. Stonewall Jackson and Robert Lee were two, better-known Confederate generals who led the faction in the Civil War and advocated for keeping slavery in the U.S.

The reversal was prompted by conservative group Coalition for Better Schools, which asked officials to change back the names as "revisiting this decision is essential to honor our community's heritage and respect the wishes of the majority."

The board, which serves over 5,600 students, had already voted on a similar motion in 2022, but it didn't pass after a tie.

According to the motion that restores the names, the funds required to do so "must be provided by private donations exclusively and not be borne by the school system or government tax funds, though the SCPS [Shenandoah County Public Schools] will oversee disbursements relating to restoration costs."