please answer briefly from your own knowledge

What's In a Name?

Robert E. Lee was many things to many people, but he is best known as the General-in-Chief of the Confederate Army. Like John Ashmore, Robert E. Lee lived most of his life as a "Union-loving" man, but ultimately decided to go with his state, and against the Union, when Virginia seceded in 1861. After the War, in every part of the country, including here in San Antonio, Americans named their streets and schools after Lee and erected statues of Lee for display on public grounds.

In 2017, violent protests over a Lee statue in Virginia triggered a debate over the name of San Antonio's Robert E. Lee High School. As demonstrated by these recent events, the American people have come to understand the historical meaning of the Confederacy differently. Watch the video about what happened in Charlottesville, read some of the articles about "LEE" High School, and share your answers to these questions:

• R.E. Lee stood for the Confederate States of America: what did the Confederacy stand for during the Civil War? Use Confederate voices (like John Ashmore) to answer this question: What were they fighting for/against?

[Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy, said that slavery was the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy, a new union based upon the "great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."

In South Carolina, the delegates who launched the Confederacy explained their vote to secede as a response to Lincoln personally, a president whose "opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery," and the north generally, which had "assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions."]

Historically speaking, what does a monument of Robert E. Lee, or a school named after him, represent to any observer: black or white, northern or southern, American or other? How should this impact our approach to (re-)naming schools, public landmarks, etc?