{"id":20954,"date":"2013-12-17T00:48:58","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T05:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=20954"},"modified":"2014-01-27T09:37:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T14:37:00","slug":"jacksonville-school-board-rejects-kkk-affiliated-school-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/12\/17\/jacksonville-school-board-rejects-kkk-affiliated-school-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville School Board Rejects KKK-Affiliated School Name"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-20954-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/12\/StateImpactTWVitti_web-1.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/12\/StateImpactTWVitti_web-1.mp3\">https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/12\/StateImpactTWVitti_web-1.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<div id=\"attachment_19475\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 179px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Nathan Bedford Forrest.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/07\/7-10-NathanForrest.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-19475\" alt=\"Nathan Bedford Forrest.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/07\/7-10-NathanForrest-179x300.jpg\" width=\"179\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/07\/7-10-NathanForrest-179x300.jpg 179w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/07\/7-10-NathanForrest.jpg 357w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 179px) 100vw, 179px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Wikimedia Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nathan Bedford Forrest.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>After more than a half century of controversy, Nathan B. Forrest High School in Jacksonville is looking for a new name.<\/p>\n<p>In 1959, Forrest High was named for Nathan Bedford Forrest\u2014the Civil War general and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.<\/p>\n<p>But Monday night, on the recommendation of Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, the Duval County School Board voted unanimously to rename the high school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are deep divides on some levels between communities\u2014that goes back to slavery, it goes back to Jim Crow,\u201d Vitti <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/07\/01\/superintendent-nikolai-vitti-on-his-first-year-in-jacksonville-race-and-the-challenges-to-florida-schools\/\" target=\"_blank\">told StateImpact Florida in June<\/a>. \u201cAt some point we have to go beyond talking about it to doing things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-20954-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/12\/StateImpactTWVitti_web-1.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/12\/StateImpactTWVitti_web-1.mp3\">https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2013\/12\/StateImpactTWVitti_web-1.mp3<\/a><\/audio>LISTEN: Nikolai Vitti&#8217;s First Conversation With StateImpact Florida\/audio]<\/p>\n<p>He says the new name will be chosen by students and other community stakeholders.<\/p>\n<p>StateImpact Florida reporter Sammy Mack sat down again with Duval Superintendent Nikolai Vitti to talk about what\u2019s in a name:<!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q:\u00a0<\/span><b style=\"font-size: 14.44444465637207px;\">We just watched the school board vote unanimously to change the name of Nathan B. Forrest High School. We don\u2019t know what it will become. For you as the superintendent, what does this mean?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A:\u00a0<\/span>I think it means making a recommendation and then receiving the board\u2019s approval \u00a0to move forward as a city and a school district on and issue that has been divisive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q:\u00a0<\/span><b style=\"font-size: 14.44444465637207px;\">We heard a lot of comments from folks who were for and against renaming Forrest. And I noticed on both sides there were people who were saying we need to move past this. What is it you think Jacksonville is leaving behind with this change?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A:\u00a0<\/span>What was particularly striking for me was the fact of how the school was named. The students by vast majority wanted the name of the school to be Valhalla. Yet politics reigned. The Daughters of the Confederacy lobbied the school board and the name of the school ended up being Nathan B. Forrest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\">And that was clearly a reaction to the civil rights movement and desegregation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\">What I think is concerning about that is, one: it negated the voice of the students. But it also was a sign of the resistance to racial equality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q:\u00a0<\/span><b style=\"font-size: 14.44444465637207px;\">This is not the first time that there\u2019s been a vote about whether or not to change Forrest High\u2019s name. The last time was as recently as 2007, 2008<b>\u2014<\/b>at which point the board elected not to. And they did so along color lines. What has changed in that short amount of time?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A:\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s hard for me to speak directly to that. I wasn\u2019t here when that vote occurred. I can just tell you that we have a very progressive board that selected an agent of change\u2014which is myself. I came to Jacksonville to do things differently on behalf of children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\">And not only what I said, but what board members said, is that we ran to be child-centric. We ran to represent the interest of children, not adults.<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><strong>Q: You\u2019ve been here as superintendent for a little over a year. What have you learned about your community through this debate over the name of the school?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A:\u00a0<\/span>What I was particularly proud of is that there was no name calling, there was very little sarcasm. That signaled to me the maturity of a city. A city that is moving beyond the history of slavery, of Jim Crow, of desegregation\u2014and seeing a new Jacksonville.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\"><span class=\"abbr\">Q:\u00a0<\/span><b style=\"font-size: 14.44444465637207px;\">What do you hope the students get out of what has happened in the past couple months here?<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\"><span class=\"abbr\">A:\u00a0<\/span>I hope this scenario gives credence to the fact their voice matters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\">It allows them at some level to hear their voice, so that when they leave the soon-to-be-changed-name of Forrest High School, that whatever it is that they do\u2014whether they vote, run for office, whether they go on to their job, raise a family\u2014whatever they do, that they realize that their voice matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After more than a half century of controversy, Nathan B. Forrest High School in Jacksonville is looking for a new name. In 1959, Forrest High was named for Nathan Bedford Forrest\u2014the Civil War general and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan. But Monday night, on the recommendation of Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, the Duval County [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[872,847],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20954"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20958,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20954\/revisions\/20958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}