William County School Board Chairman Ryan Sawyers wants to change the name of Stonewall Jackson Middle School and Senior High School. From insidenova.com:
“Stonewall Jackson will certainly be honored in history, but he shouldn’t be celebrated with school names,” Sawyers said in an interview. “These aren’t people that should be looked up to with public money…This man actively fought to enslave people and prevent them from having an education and to sell off their children and their offspring. We shouldn’t have schools named after him. We just shouldn’t. It’s time to make those changes.”
“I’m not the one who gave Stonewall Jackson his nickname,” Sawyers said. “It just so happens that he got it right here in Prince William County and it’s time to bring it to an end.”
(Would anyone in the world have heard of Manassas were it not for Stonewall Jackson?)
School board chair Sawyer believes it will cost $250,000 to change the name of the middle school and an additional $500,000 to change the name of the high school. To that end, he has set up a “Go Fund Me” page. The page has not been a success.
Chairman of the Board of Supervisors in Prince William County, and candidate for U.S. Senate, Corey Stewart, has objected to this change in school names by saying it will never happen while he is Chairman. (The ‘over my dead body approach’). Stewart says the schools were named after Stonewall Jackson “because . . . he was a good and honorable and noble man.” Stewart has threatened to withhold funding for those schools if they proceed with a name change. Stewart said”
“This is just political correctness run amok,”
Corey Stewart is correct. Judging from the lack of response to the “Go Fund Me” page most citizens of Prince William County agree with him.
