A Texas high school athlete has penned a powerful letter urging her school, named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee, to change its title.
Gertrude ‘Trude’ Lamb is a star cross country athlete for Robert E. Lee High School in Tyler but says with each victory and medal she wins, her jersey emblazoned with Lee’s wears her down.
Lamb, who moved to the US from Ghana, Africa, in 2014, shared her poignant message to school district leaders who met on Monday, urging for officials to end the glorification of the controversial figure who owned slaves.
‘I love and enjoy the sports I play at REL. I can’t be playing sports, supporting, and going to a school that was named after a person who was against my people right here in the United States,’ the rising sophomore wrote as per CNN.
Rising sophomore and cross-country athlete Gertrude ‘Trude’ Lamb has penned a powerful letter to the Tyler Independent School District in Texas demanding her school – Robert E. Lee High School – change its name
She’s a rising sophomore at Robert E. Lee High School in Tyler and is ashamed that ‘Lee’ appears on her jerseys during cross-country races. Lamb and the other top three runners on her team have all pledged not to wear Lee’s name on their jerseys until the school name is changed
‘He owned slaves and didn’t believe people like me were 100 percent human let alone ever go to my very high school. I cannot bear and will no longer wear his name on my race jersey,’ she said.
Robert E. Lee was the controversial general of the Confederate Army in the Civil War and was known as a slave owner
‘I’m currently the fastest girl on your varsity cross country team. I held that place my 9th grade year and plan to do the same my 10th grade year…As one of your black students, I’m respectfully asking you to take up the REL name change issue.’
Lamb says Lee is even glorified in the school’s alma mater which says: ‘Robert E. Lee we raise our voice in praise of your name. May honor and glory e’er guide you to fame.’
‘What has he done for him to be praised like that?’ Lamb said.
Locals had tried to push the school board to change the name of the high school in 2018 but the motion failed to gain traction at a school board meeting.
The action to rename the school comes as Confederate monuments and figures – including statues of Robert E. Lee – have been toppled and become the focal point of protests decrying racism in the US.
Other students are pledging not the wear Lee’s name and a petition has been launched calling to rename the school and has already racked up over 10,000 signatures
On Monday between 250 and 300 protesters clamored outside of the school district’s administration office as a meeting was being held inside to urge the Tyler ISD Board of Trustees to change the school’s name. Protesters taking a knee above
Protesters carried signs that said ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘We Won’t Wear The Name’
Board president of the Tyler Independent School District Wade Washmon said in a statement Monday that he hopes the Board can discuss the name change this summer. However, Lamb has not received a response to her letter
Now Lamb’s powerful letter is the arm of a new push to change the school’s name.
Other students are pledging not the wear Lee’s name and a petition has been launched calling to rename the school and has already racked up over 10,000 signatures.
Lamb and the other top three runners on her team have all pledged not to wear Lee’s name on their jerseys until the school name is changed.
Some have also called for another school in the district, John Tyler High School, to be renamed as its named after the tenth US president who worked to create the Southern Confederacy.
A view of Robert E Lee High School in Tyler, Texas above
On Monday between 250 and 300 protesters clamored outside of the school district’s administration office as a meeting was being held inside to urge the Tyler ISD Board of Trustees to change the school’s name, as per CBS19.
Although changing the schools’ names weren’t on the agenda Lamb signed up to read her letter to meeting attendees.
‘I am from Ghana, Africa, where slavery first began,’ she said.
‘I have stood in the dungeons of the slave castle and seen the three foot urine and feces stains on the walls where my brothers and sisters were kept. I’ve seen the tiny hole at the top of the ceiling where they would throw food in to the captured souls.
‘I don’t see a future of remembering a person who did nothing for our country and who didn’t care for me or my people. He continues to bring our city down,’ Lamb said.
Lamb’s jersey says ‘Tyler Lee’ to stand for her city and the Confederate leader. She says she wants her school to be known for ‘someone who we can all be proud of.’
Board president of the Tyler Independent School District Wade Washmon said in a statement Monday that he hopes the Board can discuss the name change this summer. However, Lamb has not received a response to her letter.
‘We as a board are well aware of the issues surrounding the names of both of our flagship high schools. We have heard from, and anticipate hearing more, from the community on the subject. This time in between school years will hopefully be used to discuss, and find both consensus and meaningful resolution in a unified manner,’ Washmon said to CNN.
Lamb’s adopted mother Laura Owens said that if the school’s name isn’t changed before the school year begins she and other parents will explore filing a lawsuit for violation of civil rights.
If the school board voted to change the school’s name, it would cost the district about $1million.
ROBERT E. LEE – INHERITED 189 SLAVES
Robert E. Lee (pictured) inherited slaves from his father-in-law in 1857
Confederate general-in-chief Robert E. Lee fought in the Mexican-American War and spent three years as a superintendent at West Point, training some of the men who would later serve under him.
He owned slaves from the age of 22, when he inherited several families after the death of his mother Ann Lee.
In 1857, his father-in-law left him 189 slaves who worked on the estates of Arlington, White House, and Romancoke.
The will provided that the slaves should be freed after five years, but Lee tried multiple times to resist this and keep the slaves under his control.
He wrote to The New York Times on the issue. In his letter, he referred to slavery as an ‘evil’.
He went on, however: ‘I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former.
‘The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically.
‘The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.
‘Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy.’
Although he was ‘not a pro-slavery ideologue’ according to one historian, Lee was known to use ‘violence typical of the institution of slavery’ and some slaves tried to escape his discipline. Some were recaptured and beaten on Lee’s orders.
He did not finally free the slaves until three days before Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would have done so anyway.
Lincoln had offered Lee the command of Union forces in 1861, but Lee defected instead and became a general in the Confederate army.
Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia did battle with Grant’s federal troops in some of the defining battles of the war, which ended with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House in 1865. Lee died in 1870.