State board urges Patrick Henry Community College and others to change names

[mahatmakanejeeves]

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State board urges Patrick Henry Community College and others to change names

Amy Friedenberger 22 hrs ago

The governing body of Virginia’s community college system is urging two institutions — including Patrick Henry Community College — to reconsider their decisions to maintain the names of their schools that honor people who advocated for segregation or owned slaves.

The State Board for Community Colleges initiated a process last July of having colleges examine the names of their schools and buildings. Of the 23 community colleges in Virginia, five of them are named after segregationists, slave owners and confederates. Three of them have already begun the process to change their names.

Patrick Henry Community College and Dabney S. Lancaster Community College in Clifton Forge had reported back to the state board that they wanted to keep their names. But the state board, which has the ultimate authority over the names, urged them last week to revisit their decisions.

“Should you name a college after him? I don’t know,” said Richard Reynolds, a member of the state board and former member of the House of Delegates. “I believe that today, no college would be named after Dabney Lancaster with any research into all that happened in his life.”

Patrick Henry Community College is going to hold additional meetings to discuss once again changing its name. The college had told the state board it wanted to keep its name.

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Amy Friedenberger is a reporter for The Roanoke Times. Reach her at [e-mail] or 540-981-3356.

[RobertDevereaux]

1. Never knew that PH was a slaver!

Patrick Henry writing to Antislavery Activist Joseph Alsop:

“Is it not amazing that at a time when the rights of humanity are defined and understood with precision, in a country, above all others, fond of liberty—that in such an age and such a country we find men professing a religion the most humane, mild, meek, gentle and generous, adopting a principle [slavery] as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and destructive to liberty?

“Every thinking, honest man rejects it in speculation. How few, in practice, from conscientious motives!...

“Would any one believe that I am master of slaves by my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not—I cannot justify it, however culpable my conduct. I will so far pay my devoir to Virtue, as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts, and to lament my want of conformity to them.

“I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be afforded to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we can do, is to improve it, if It happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot, and an abhorrence of Slavery.

“If we cannot reduce this wished-for reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy victims with lenity. It is the furthest advancement we can make toward justice. It is a debt we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that law which warrants Slavery.”

[RobertDevereaux]

2. By all means, remove his name from that community college.

[NurseJackie]

3. I wonder what Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News, VA will do...

... will this make them consider a name change as well?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Since Patrick Henry CC serves Patrick County and Henry County, what's wrong with the hyphen?

Patrick - Henry Community College.

[NurseJackie]

5. Honestly? I'd question the motives of anyone who did that. It seems like a shitty way...

Honestly? I'd question the motives of anyone who did that. It seems like a shitty way to circumvent and ignore the legitimate concerns of those who feel a name-change is appropriate.

That's my opinion.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. You're going to end up renaming everything.

Last edited Mon May 24, 2021, 08:20 PM - Edit history (1)

Patrick County

Henry County

Much more …

{edited}

By “you,” I don’t mean you in particular, NurseJackie. I meant “you” in the sense of society in general, as in “everything will end up getting renamed.”

Does that help? Sorry for any confusion I’ve caused.

[NurseJackie]

7. No, I won't. But others may come to a consensus that it's the right thing to do.