Signs of the times bring out Staunton's unshared histories

Julia Fair , Laura Peters | Staunton News Leader

Two Staunton residents. Two graduates of a high school named after Robert E. Lee. Two people with strong enough opinions on the potential name change of the school that they were willing to put signs on their lawns. The signs are about more than a current debate; they are about how people grew up in this small city; in some ways the same, in many ways different.

'You can move forward, but you can't forget'

Sharon Wells's 11-year-old biracial grandson peered out the car window. A blue “Save the Name” sign whizzed by in a blur, but the message lingered.

“Granny, Robert E. Lee doesn’t stand for anything good,” Matthew said to Wells.

Wells graduated from the namesake high school in 1971. Driving by the blue signs while running errands reminds her of her classmates being spit on, the “N word” shouted at them in the halls and the Ku Klux Klan walking past Trinity Church.

When Matthew made that claim, she had him read about Robert E. Lee, just as she had done when he started asking questions about Abraham Lincoln.

She wants Matthew to form his own opinion on the contention well displayed in Staunton neighborhoods, her experience aside.

Self-segregation was normal, Wells said. White students stood on one side of the school and black students the other even after the administrative change. It took time to blend, Wells said, but she’s moved forward.

“But as they say, you can move forward, but you can’t forget,” Wells said.

Sending her two sons to the school with the name of the confederate general who fought for the south was difficult, but she felt like she didn’t have a choice.

When Wells’ 11-year-old biracial grandson started Shelburne Middle school this year, she thought about how difficult it would be to send another one of her children to Robert E. Lee High School.

“He was a great general for his time, but he don’t belong on my school,” Wells said.

Her two sons, now 29 and 43, made their way through the same-named high school as their mom.

Parenting them meant Wells had to navigate harsh punishments her sons received in school, which were often more severe than white children, Wells said.

She worried about them walking home. One liked to take short cuts through a prominently white neighborhood at night — he wanted to get home faster. When she puts her grandson to bed, she makes sure he locks his windows out of anxiety that someone could come in through the ground floor of the house.

It was years ago, but the blue signs mimicking the white letters set against the brick school building feels like a slap in the face, Wells said.

“That name — it bothers us,” Wells said. It floods back the memories of inequality and abuse.

So the blue signs were met with red. Just as the Union blue was met with Confederate grey.

Wells got her sign out of the first 100 that her reverend, Edward Scott, from Allen Chapel purchased for about $300 with his own money.

Soon her neighbors came knocking, they wanted signs too. Wells talked about one neighbor who chased her down at 11 p.m. just to obtain another sign.

“You want to save the name? Well, we want to tell you that the name hurts,” Wells said with another red sign tucked behind her chair, waiting for another neighbor to pick it up later in the day.

Some of the signs haven’t made it past the first 24 hours in public sight.

Wells said the red sign placed outside of her church made its way into a parking lot and others have been subject to black spray painted ‘X’ across the message.

Crossing property lines with intentions to deface troubles Wells. She wants everyone to respect each other's properties — and their opinions.

Because in the end, when the school board votes on whether the name is changed, “we’ll still be neighbors,” Wells said.

“I’ll treat you with kindness, and I’ll treat you with respect,” she said.

— Julia Fair

'We're willing to listen'

It’s 1964 in Staunton. Back then, Sondra Shaner would spend her days either working half days at the Morgan Music Center, going to record hops at the armory or getting a Coca Cola at the Tidbit on East Beverley Street.

Her nights were filled with football games and watching her now-husband be the drum major in the marching band. And summers were filled with swimming, picnics and the county fair.

Shaner graduated Robert E. Lee High School that year, before integration reached Staunton schools.

She says that she has so many fond memories of Lee High and she thinks the tradition will be wiped away if the name is changed. The tradition that not only she has, but her husband and son — both graduates of the high school in Staunton — share as well.

In 2018, her house in the Hillcrest neighborhood is much like many of its neighbors. It’s a bricked one-story home with a well manicured lawn and an American flag. It also has a blue sign sticking in the ground that reads “Save the Name.”

Driving around her neighborhood you can see the blue signs are scattered in various yards. Shaner first inquired about the signs about four months ago in hopes to put one in her yard. She met up with a group that regularly gathers at one of the picnic shelters in Gypsy Hill Park every Monday at 6 p.m.

It’s a group of Lee High alumni. They pay for the signs themselves, they say, and give them away to anyone who wants them. In the past few weeks they’ve seen some people confronting them about being there. Recently, they were intimidated by a man who was taking photos of them and a jogger who ran by and came up telling them they had “hate in their hearts.”

“With true Lee High grads and alumni, there is a strong sense of pride," Shaner says. "The pride is with the high school, not necessarily the man Robert E. Lee. We all feel that way. It’s the feeling within in the school, the walls of the building. It doesn’t matter what the name of it is.”

Still, Shaner doesn’t want the city or its taxpayers to pay for the school to be renamed. She thinks there should be a compromise from each side.

“If the name was ABC High, it doesn’t mean it sells liquor,” she said.

Shaner would be OK with the name changing to just “Lee High” and dropping the Robert E. part. But she’s against the naming of it to be Staunton High. The Staunton school was renamed from Staunton High School to Robert E. Lee High School in 1914.

“That was built as a white school,” she said of the name Staunton High.

Shaner feels that the other side of the fence, those who want to change the name, are spreading hate against those who want to save the name. Many of those who meet every Monday have had signs stolen or ripped down, she says.

According to the Staunton Police Department there has been only one report of a sign being stolen, from a residence on North Augusta Street sometime between June 30 and July 1, but there were no investigative leads and the case is inactive.

“I think it’s the way the country has become … divided,” she said. “You can’t erase history. I don’t mind driving on Martin Luther King Jr. bridge or anything like that. Just deal with it and go on. They’re focusing on the hurt and not looking at the good.”

Shaner said the name isn’t about politics or slavery, but the constant discussion of it is bringing all of it back up.

“A lot of history we’ve had has helped mold our country into what it is today,” she said.

Shaner said she’s willing to talk to the “other side” and wants to come to a compromise, but she feels that she isn’t heard.

“They won’t talk about it and they’re accusing us of being hateful,” she said. “We’re willing to listen.”

Shaner graduated Lee before Booker T. Washington High closed down and the two schools were integrated. She didn’t live through it. She says her son graduated in the late 1980s and she said he had plenty of friends of color.

“You just have to be open to people,” she said. “We’re all God’s children. We’re just different colors, like flowers.”

—Laura Peters

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Follow Laura Peters @peterslaura and @peterpants. You can reach her at lpeters@newsleader.com or 213-9125.