Jim Crow’s legacy at Robert E. Lee High in Baytown must end
My senior year, I was the president of the Brigadiers, and I marched with the Brig for all four of my years at Robert E. Lee High School in Baytown.
As much as I loved my experiences and friendships, I look back in shame at what I did innocently at school-sanctioned activities that hurt my Black classmates and their families.
These activities were intricate to the traditions at Lee that evolved from the trope of the Confederacy as per the name that the school was given under the Jim Crow era in the United States. Jim Crow was created specifically to oppress Black citizens and to maintain segregation and white supremacy in the South.
It is very clear to me that even in 1985, Jim Crow was working. It is working even still as evidenced by the tenacity of those hell-bent on holding on to the name in 2020.
It is well-known that Jim Crow was an atrocity — a deep wounding of the millions of Black Americans trying to overcome the horrors and lasting effects of slavery.
Why do we still hold tightly to it on this very day in Baytown? Why can we not just make this right?
There were close to 200 girls in the Brigadiers in 1985. Of those girls, four were Black. I remember wondering why there were not more, but, at the time, I assumed that they simply did not want to join.
I was wrong. I now know that many of my Black classmates wanted to join the Brigadiers but were dissuaded by their families who could not stomach the image of their daughters wearing Confederate-styled uniforms marching to the tune of “Dixie.” Of course.
And the Brig was one of many activities from which my Black classmates felt excluded because of the Confederate trope steeped strong in those clubs, sports and activities.
The Brigadiers no longer exist due to “lack of interest” as the demographics of the school shifted to serve a larger minority population. This shows that a true need to let the school’s traditions evolve to fit those it serves is way overdue.
This includes the name. The name started it, and it must change — not only because it does not fit but because it is harmful.
When I was at Lee, every football game at Stallworth Stadium would begin with a flagbearer running across the field with the Confederate flag. I vividly remember getting so excited when that happened. This pains me now to remember it. Now, I know better. Now, I know that it is deeply hurtful, and that is devastating because people were harmed, and I participated unknowingly in that harm.
What I know now is that this was painful to my Black classmates and their parents who could say nothing.
The Confederate flag was normalized to me and my classmates. Our Black classmates saw all of us participating, and none of us made a move to stop it, so we looked to them as though we meant it. Many of our Black classmates believed that all of us meant what that flag represents. Therefore, we, too, were harmed. Our relationships were harmed.
It was such a massive injustice. It still is.
If the name changes, our memories of that time do not evaporate. If the name changes, our diplomas are still valid. If the name changes, and it costs money, we will find the money.
It’s absolutely necessary that not one more child is excluded from full participation in their education at this high school due to the psychological segregation that exists — and has existed systematically for 92 years — under the name of Robert E. Lee.
Please note that I am aware of the biography of Mr. Lee. The name is wrong not because of Robert E. Lee himself but because of what the name represents and what it breeds in our communities that is harmful.
The fact that it is even being so vehemently argued at all shows, in fact, the effect this school’s Jim Crow traditions have had to the detriment of the community at large.
Injustice hurts everyone in the end.