Florida High School Named After Ku Klux Klan Co-Founder Being Renamed

It only took damn near 60 YEARS! SMH…

Florida High School Named After Ku Klux Klan Co-Founder Being Renamed

Remember when we told you about that high school in Jacksonville, Florida named after a co-founder of the KKK?

Yeah, they’re back in the news but this time it’s because the school is FINALLY being renamed after 55 LONG years.

The Florida Times Union reports:

The old Nathan B. Forrest High School is being transformed into the new Westside High School.

Businesses and community members have chipped in either financially or in-kind donations but so far that is not nearly enough to offset the cost to Duval County Public Schools to change the name.

Workers with Jacksonville companies that have donated materials and labor are in the process of changing out the signs at the high school.

The Duval County School Board voted unanimously in January to change the name to Westside for the neighborhood encompassing it. Since 1959, it had been named for Forrest, a Confederate general who was the leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

The board voted in the wake of a petition drive, and decades of controversy that pitted alumni who advocated keeping the Forrest name against those contending it should be changed, including students at the high school where many are African-American.

It will cost the district about $220,000 to change the sign, gym floor, and the students’ athletic uniforms, said Tia Ford, district spokeswoman.

So far, the district has received about $2,807 in financial donations from community members to help offset that cost. It continues to accept donations.

Meanwhile, Jacksonville companies including Holmes Stamp & Sign, Farm Out Design Services and Matt Carlucci State Farm are donating materials and labor for the project, Ford said.

 

Took you long enough FLORIDA…SMH