Former classmates Julianne Moore and producer Bruce Cohen have started a petition together on Change.org to rename their high school that bears the name of a confederate general.
Julianne and Bruce, along with many other students and alumni from the Virginia school, want the school to honor Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court Justice. In just a few weeks, more than 28,000 people have signed on to the petition.
Julianne and Bruce say in their petition: “When we were at J.E.B. Stuart in the late ’70’s, the school symbol was Stuart riding a horse and waving the Confederate flag. The Confederate flag was at the center of our basketball court and on our athletic letter jackets and wasn’t removed until 2001… No one should have to apologize for the name of the public high school you attended and the history of racism it represents, as we and so many alumni of Stuart have felt the need to do our whole lives.”
Recently, Russell Simmons and the local NAACP chapter tweeted their support for the name change. Check out live signature totals and comments on their petition here.
