Incoming high school sophomore at Robert E. Lee High School in Tyler, Texas, Trude Lamb, will no longer wear the name of her school across her jersey.
What We Know:
- Lamb runs cross country at the school and has won countless medals according to CNN. She wrote in a letter to the school board that she will no longer wear the school’s jersey which says “Tyler Lee”. Tyler is for Tyler Independent School District and Lee stands for Robert E. Lee High School. She says that although Tyler isn’t Lee’s full name, ‘it’s still his name’.
- The school’s alma mater gratifies Lee even more according to Lamb. She says, “Robert E. Lee we raise our voice in praise of your name. May honor and glory e’er guide you to fame. What has he done for him to be praised like that?” Lamb’s letter has encouraged other students not to wear the schools name. Local media reports say community members pushed for the schoolboard to change the school’s name in 2018, but no one seconded the motion.
- A petition has gone around in efforts to change the school’s name and has received over 10,000 signatures. Another high school, John Tyler High School has also been petitioned to have a name change because John Tyler, the tenth US President worked to create the Southern Confederacy.
Lamb’s full letter:
I am one of you(r) true African and 1st generation African American students at REL. I am from Ghana, Africa where slavery first began. I came to America in 2014. I have stood in the dungeons of the slave castle and seen the three foot urine and feces stains on the walls where my brothers and sisters were kept. I’ve seen the tiny hole at the top of the ceiling where they would throw food in to the captured souls. I’ve walked through the “Gate of No Return” where over 12 million of my brothers and sisters were kidnapped never to return back to their home. I have worked the very fields and fetched water for my family from the very places my people were kidnapped.
I love and enjoy the sports I play at REL. I can’t be playing sports, supporting, and going to a school that was named after a person who was against my people right here in the United States. He owned slaves and didn’t believe people like me were 100% human let alone ever go to my very high school. I cannot bear and will no longer wear his name on my race jersey. I’m currently the fastest girl on your varsity cross country team. I held that place my 9th grade year and plan to do the same my 10th grade year.
I don’t see a future of remembering a person who did nothing for our country and who didn’t care for me or my people. He continues to bring our city down.
As one of your black students, I’m respectfully asking you to take up the REL name change issue. Please vote to change the name, not to “Tyler LEE” but after someone who we can all be proud of. Using the excuse that it would be too expensive, is not okay. This town was built on the backs of my enslaved brothers and sisters. Do it in their memory and honor the future of their ancestors that are at REL.
I hope you understand where I am coming from.
Sincerely,
Gertrude “Trude” A. Lamb
On Monday, protestors surrounded the school district’s administration office as they held a meeting. Board President of Tyler Independent School District, Wade Washmon says he hopes the board can discuss the issue during the summer but the board has yet to respond to Lamb’s letter.
