Rename Stonewall Jackson Middle after Roberto Clemente, a veteran who sided with his country | Editorial

Orange County has been debating whether to rename Stonewall Jackson Middle School longer than the Confederate general fought in the Civil War.

The war began in April 1861, and Jackson was wounded by friendly fire at the battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. He died a few days later.

The school system started talking about renaming Jackson Middle in late 2017 and is now on at least the third survey of parents and students on whether or what to rename the school.

Just change it already. It’s a regional embarrassment that Orlando, one of the state’s most diverse metro areas, is home to one of the few remaining schools in Florida named for Confederates who took up arms against their nation so states could continue to keep people in bondage.

It’s not like this is an unprecedented step for the School Board. It renamed Robert E. Lee Middle School as College Park Middle in 2017.

Even Jacksonville, a place more closely identified with the Deep South, found the will seven years ago to rename Nathan B. Forrest High, which for years honored the slave trader turned Confederate general turned Klan leader, and it’s moving to rename six other schools named for Confederates.

Here in Orlando, community advocates have proposed a perfectly good alternative to Jackson Middle: Roberto Clemente Middle School, for the Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Pirates rightfielder who died in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve in 1972 while helping deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. Clemente was a veteran as well, a Marine who swore an oath to fight for his country, not against it.

The contrast between the two men and their legacies could hardly be greater, nor the example their paths in life set for kids who attend the school.

Jackson Middle opened in 1965, the year after the Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress and signed by Lyndon Johnson. The Sentinel reported before its opening that two names had been considered: Jackson and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Both names were a stick in the eye of the civil rights movement, yet another reason to put this ugly part of Central Florida’s past behind us.

When Stonewall Jackson Middle opened in east Orlando, the student body was all white. Now it’s about 75% Hispanic, many of them coming from families with a connection to Clemente’s home of Puerto Rico.

With so many communities finally recognizing the folly of honoring an illegal rebellion that cost hundreds of thousands of American lives, it’s hard to comprehend why the Orange County school system is moving so slowly.

On Monday evening the city of Sanford unanimously approved a resolution repudiating the informal designation of a city park known as “Roy G. Williams Park,” named for a longtime police chief who threatened to halt a minor league baseball game because Jackie Robinson was on the field.

No muss. No fuss. The City Commission just took a vote and got it done.

Unlike the school system, which is dragging this out in part because the school’s advisory council has been so feckless. Last year it proposed lopping “Stonewall” off the name and keeping it as Jackson Middle School, as if people who don’t know better might think it was named for Bo or Jesse or Samuel L.

The school doesn’t need sleight-of-hand. It needs a name that doesn’t conjure up nostalgia for a rebellion that was dedicated to the preservation of slavery. (The street in front of the school -- Stonewall Jackson Road -- also is overdue for a name change.)

School officials say they’re trying to follow the policy for renaming schools, which vaguely requires input from “community stakeholders.” Fine. Let this most recent survey take place and then put a recommendation for a new name in front of the School Board for a vote. Stop dawdling.

Stonewall Jackson’s name belongs in the history books, not in a place of honor on a public school.

Name the school instead for Roberto Clemente, a veteran, a humanitarian and a ballplayer who could hit above .300 in his sleep.

Editorials are the opinion of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board and are written by one of its members or a designee. The editorial board consists of Opinion Editor Mike Lafferty, Jennifer A. Marcial Ocasio, Jay Reddick, David Whitley and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Send emails to insight@orlandosentinel.com.

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