Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Lee-Jackson School in Mathews needs a new name. If I had ever questioned that, last week’s Mathews School Board meeting would have convinced me.

Oversized Confederate flags greeted me at the entrance to the high school parking lot, and in this county, those flags are used for intimidation. Inside the overcrowded, under-masked meeting, name-change opponents uttered cherry-picked historical factoids to draw a warped picture of an imagined kinder, gentler past, and even asserted that Kamilah Bambi Turner, the Black woman who presented a name-change petition signed by residents of both races, was herself racist. A school name that contentious and divisive is inappropriate and should be replaced.

Molly HoffmanGwynn, Va.
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