School board crowd boos NAACP for objecting to 'Dixie' fight song, Confederate mascot
A debate got heated over whether or not a Georgia high school should stop using the pro-slavery "Dixie" as its fight song.
On Tuesday, over 500 people showed up to a debate about whether or not the Effingham County High School in Georgia should stop using the pro-slavery “Dixie” as its fight song, as well as whether or not it should stop using a Confederate soldier as its mascot.
According to WTOC, when NAACP members and others tried to ask for the removal of these racist symbols from the school, they were met with boos and jeering from the assembled crowd.
“We have come to make a petition to right the wrong that should have been corrected 60 years ago,” Effingham NAACP President Leroy Lloyd said.
“We asked that you discontinue the use of Dixie as a school fight song,” added First Union Baptist Church Pastor Franklin Blanks, Jr.
But those statement sent the crowd into a frenzy, and pro-Confederate supporters took the microphone to defend their “heritage.”
“You try to erase my heritage, you try to erase anything that you think is racist,” one Confederate supporter said to Blanks, reports WTOC. “But the whole time you were over here, sir, I apologize, but everything you said was racist.”
That statement was met with a standing ovation by the assembled audience, which was mostly white.
The school board said that it will make a decision about the mascot and fight song at a later date.
