JPS school honoring Jefferson Davis to be renamed after Barack Obama
Source: The Clarion - Ledger
Bracey Harris, The Clarion-Ledger Published 6:38 a.m. CT Oct. 18, 2017
A predominately black public school in Mississippi named after Jefferson Davis will have its Confederate tied namesake stripped next year and replaced with the title of another president whose character students, parents and teachers have said is more fitting— Barack Obama.
Davis Magnet IB PTA President Janelle Jefferson announced at the Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday evening that school stakeholders voted on Oct. 5 to rename the school Barack Obama Magnet IB.
“Jefferson Davis, although infamous in his own right, would probably not be too happy about a diverse school promoting the education of the very individuals he fought to keep enslaved being named after him,” she told the board.
A demographic breakdown of Davis Magnet’s enrollment for the 2017 school lists 98 percent of the school’s students as black.
Read more: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2017/10/18/jps-school-renames-jefferson-davis-barack-obama/774892001/
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Help, I'm starting to forget who fought the civil war. 
I'm surprised it lasted this long since it's a predominantly black school. Some people forget minority Americans exist. Maybe we should build some monuments to remind them.
Every day walking into a school named after your oppressor only means that the white supremacy is reinforced and the children are forced to endure all the symbolic negative connotations of that. Finally this generation of children will really have someone to look up to and emulate.
In far SW Mississippi is Wilkinson County, home to the small town of Centreville -- part of C'ville is in neighboring Amite County.
Back in the early 1800's, there was a famous circuit-riding Methodist preacher who covered most of SW MS, William Winans, 1788 - 1857. The high school in Centreville was named William Winans Institute as early as 1928. My mother and her three siblings graduated from WWI between 1940 and 1954.
http://www.millsaps.edu/library/archives/library_cain_winans.php
After Brown v. Board of Education was enforced, the white citizens of the Centreville area formed two private "Christian academies" -- Centreville Academy and Wilkinson County Christian Academy -- which are all-white schools (well, 99% white . . . they admit a few black kids who are top-notch athletes) - - - while the black kids are in the public schools.
William Winans was a small slave owner and a champion of the Back-to-Africa movement, encouraging slaves and freed slaves to go back to Africa. I'm related to him through his marriage to Martha DuBose.
The old WWI name is still there -- William Winans Institute is now William Winans Middle School and Head Start Center -- both all-black schools -- I'm not certain what Rev. William Winans would think of this development.
