NAACP Weighs In On the Proposed Name Change of Lee High School

The local president of the NAACP says any name that keeps the name "Lee" is still offensive.

According to the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Eddie Rabb, the president on the Midland NAACP Unit No. 6354, has sent an email to the MISD Board to state that any name that keeps part of the original name is still offensive.

Rabb also wrote that the NAACP objects to the decision of the board to "populate" the committee with people against the name change because it will only make them try to keep some aspect of the name.

Now that the committee has chosen Legacy of Equality and Excellence, which is the acronym L.E.E., Rabb states that the community will still refer to the school as Lee.

“Consider the Ku Klux Klan (referred to as the KKK),” Rabb wrote. “If this organization changes its name to “Kind Kids Kampaign” (and still be referred to as the KKK), the connotation would still cause people to associate it with the Ku Klux Klan and affiliate the new organization with the old. It will be an insult to the local African American community who have tried to get rid of this name since its inception for the name change to not reflect the spirit of the vote to disassociate the name with Confederate general and first general to surrender during the Civil War, Robert E Lee.”

The school board will be voting on the new name of Lee High School on October 19, 2020.