Richland High School in North Richland Hills, Texas has been on the hot seat as of late. The train of headlines makes sense, considering their mascot is a Confederate caricature named Johnny Rebel and things like this happen. So, no one should be surprised that a group of high school students, regularly subjected to Richland High School’s crap, have had enough.
With support from Rev. Kyev Tatum and the Tarrant County Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Richland High School students have taken it upon themselves to protest and combat the problems seen in their school; problems, it seems, that Birdville Independent School District will not take on themselves.
According to information I received from Rev. Tatum personally, several incidents have taken place between Richland High School students, faculty, and administration, including:
- An April 2015 incident in which soccer coach Matt Snow threatened to choke out a female African-American student because she was wearing an “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirt in protest of the death of Eric Garner,
- An incident at a pep rally in which white students paraded around in “gangster” attire while an announcer proclaimed they were from the “Haltom ghetto,” and
- An incident in which three Latina students dressed as “cholas” for a school dress up day were told by a teacher they looked like “Mexican whores.”
The Tarrant County SCLC is concerned about the environment to which Richland High School students of color are subjected daily. According to “White Banal Nationalism and the Richland High School Rebels,” an essay by Dallas-based independent researcher Edward H. Sebesta, Richland High School students were educated with a Confederate battle flag over their heads until 1993. Even though the flag has come down, the Confederate identity has not, as school logos are clearly Confederate-inspired and school spirit involves a Johnny Reb spirit group and a Dixie Belles drill team.
Further complicating matters is the opposition to the students’ protests and to the SCLC’s work. Sympathizers siding with maintaining the Richland High School status quo have been vocal about their opposition toward the movement to remove Confederate imagery from the school. A group of alumni, students, and parents have even assembled a Facebook page called “Save Our Richland Rebels” in which their impressum states “a mascot is what you make it, a name is how you live it.” The impressum further states the following:
“We don’t just talk ‘equality’, WE LIVE ‘EQUALITY’, a lesson some others in our country could learn from us Rebels.”
With the string of recent events in mind, consternation over the environment in which high school students of color are being educated, and a lack of concern from Birdville Independent School District, Rev. Tatum formally filed a complaint with the Texas Education Agency and the United States Department of Education. In the meantime, Richland High School students are engaging in a t-shirt protest, hoping that their actions, as well as those of their supporters, will make Richland High School a more open, accepting environment and one that can shed the treasonous, venomous, and hostile imagery frequently seen in its hallways by descendants of the men and women who directly suffered at the hands of what that imagery represents.
If you would like to donate to the Richland Rebel Rebellion, send your donation to the following address:
Advent Urban Youth Development c/o Richland Rebel Rebellion, PO Box 14983, Haltom City, Texas, 76117.
