Posted on October 26, 2018

Port Arthur Trustees to Vote on Confederate School Names

Phoebe Suy, Beaumont Enterprise, October 25, 2018

Two elementary schools named for Confederate army officers should be renamed to honor a pair of African-Americans who served Port Arthur ISD during pivotal times, relatives say.

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The Port Arthur School Board is scheduled to vote on the renaming issue Thursday night. In an online poll the district launched in September, 75 of 188 respondents said they wanted to keep the schools named for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Lt. Richard “Dick” Dick Dowling, whose actions at the Battle of Sabine Pass in 1863 has long been a point of pride for many Texans.

A majority of survey respondents said it’s time to cut those ties.

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The possible name change comes as the school board is in the process of rebuilding some of its schools and looking to put the issue of its Confederate connections to rest. District spokeswoman Kristyn Hunt Cathey said that if trustees decide to change the names, they could also pick the new names Thursday night.

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Ten other residents nominated former President Barack Obama as a possible school name while four others suggested A.Z. McElroy, the first black trustee on the Port Arthur school board.

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Austin McElroy, son of Alfred Z. McElroy, said he believed renaming one of the schools in honor of his father would be “more unifying.”

“He just opened so many doors for so many people,” McElroy said. “Integration took place at that time, he was at the forefront of all of that.”

McElroy said he believed “it would be an injustice” for Port Arthur students to be unaware of “the history, the struggle and the good things” that happened before their time.

Alfred McElroy, an Abraham Lincoln High School coach, was elected to the school board in 1966. He served until his death in a car accident in 1990.

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Yet, he added, more people are familiar with the names Robert E. Lee and Dick Dowling and what they symbolize.

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The Texas Education Agency reports that 48 percent of Port Arthur ISD students are Hispanic and 44 percent are African-American.

Lee and Dowling elementary schools are two of nearly three dozen Texas schools named after Confederate leaders, according to a survey by the Texas Tribune.

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Changing signage at Robert E. Lee Elementary would cost around $100,000, Superintendent Mark Porterie said in August.

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Texas cities have removed more than 30 Confederate symbols, such as statues and school and street names, since the 2015 mass shooting at a black church in Charleston, S.C., according to data from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Sixty-eight monuments remain across the state.

The center noted in a report earlier this year that officials in Southeast Texas have been reluctant to remove Confederate monuments and plaques.

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This January, more than a dozen Orange residents protested the “Confederate Memorial of the Wind” monument on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

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