Posted on December 2, 2020

Confederate President’s Name to Disappear from Biloxi School

Associated Press, December 1, 2020

A Mississippi district is removing Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ name from an elementary school and has chosen a new name that highlights geography rather than history.

Back Bay Elementary will be the new name of the school in Biloxi. {snip}

Davis was a U.S. senator from Mississippi before the Civil War. At the end of his life, he lived in a Biloxi home called Beauvoir, which faces the Gulf of Mexico. {snip}

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The Biloxi School District announced in September that it would rename Jeff Davis Elementary, which was built from 1960 to 1961. {snip}

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Today, about 18% of Jeff Davis students are Black, according to the Mississippi Department of Education. About 11% are Hispanic or Latino, 56% are white and 9% are two or more races