Officials asked to reassess Bolton High school mural by NAACP

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/local_n...218048,00.html

Officials asked to reassess mural

By Wayne Risher


August 29, 2003

An NAACP leader and a parent told Shelby County school officials Thursday that a painting of Bolton High's slave-trading benefactor doesn't belong in the school.

They asked the school board to reconsider its Aug. 21 vote to repaint a historical mural featuring 19th Century planter Wade Bolton.


Johnnie Turner, executive director of the civil rights organization's Memphis branch, and Addie Holloway, a parent, complained the mural was needlessly divisive.

"I don't have a problem with the mural, but putting a slave trader's picture on it is a problem," Holloway told the board.

Turner argued the board was wrong to overrule a faculty advisory committee at the northeast Shelby school.

The committee had the mural blotted out amid complaints it was racially insensitive.

The board stepped in and ordered the repainting to quell criticism that the school had whitewashed history to be politically correct.

An art teacher painted the mural on a commission from the Class of 2003.

Mural defenders contended Bolton should be honored for leaving money and land to start the public school's predecessor, Bolton College.

Turner said, "We would urge the board to reconsider. We don't need to add fuel to the fire."

Members of the all-white board showed no inclination to act on the requests. County schools were 24.6 percent black a year ago, and Bolton was 20.2 percent black.

"I've been to work, to church and to schools and heard we're doing the right thing, from black and white," board member Ron Lollar said after the meeting. His district includes Bolton.

Holloway, who has a child at Bolton, said she wasn't discouraged by the lack of action.

"I believe it will be considered," she said. "I'm for what's right."

[Jerry D]

"Whats right is to recognize benefactors to public schools" No matter what their history is, to keep the memory of past history alive. People who forget history are doomed to repeat it!

[Packo]

I REST MY CASE!

Packo

[colmurph]

Next thing you know the NAACP will agitate to have George Washington's likeness taken off the $1.00 bill to be replaced by M.L. King because George was a Slave Owner.

[HARDCORE]

COLONEL MURPH -

"Shhh!" You may give them ideas!!

VERITAS