District 14 City Council representative Philip Kingston is in favor of taking Confederate names off of everything, but doesn’t necessarily think it should come as a directive from above.
While noting that most of the Confederate schools were built decades after the Civil War, seemingly as a symbol of white supremacy, he says the system works best if it comes from inside the school. Kingston noted the way in which Piedmont G.L.O.B.A.L Academy in Pleasant Grove changed names after a school vote to remove Confederate Gen. John B. Hood’s name. He wants the change, but he wants it to come from the communities of the schools themselves.
“Think about the level of civic engagement of the students in that school,” he says, complimenting the Dallas ISD’s process. Kingston thinks the same process should follow if the names of neighborhood schools Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson elementary are to be changed.
Since the Charleston shooting in 2015, this issue has come to the forefront, and Kingston is confident that more people are in support of a name change than would have been a few years ago.
“When Ted Cruz and I are on the same side of an issue, there isn’t much room on the other side,” he says.
The process has already started within the schools, with Dallas ISD School Board President Dan Micciche’s addressing the issue at the Sept. 14 board meeting.
