Walton, Wheeler High Schools Targeted For Name Change

EAST COBB, GA — Momentum is building to rename two East Cobb high schools, one of them nationally recognized for academic excellence.

East Cobb News reports that online petitions are demanding that both Walton High School and Wheeler High School change their names.

Walton High School is named for George Walton, one of three Georgians who signed the Declaration of Independence. He was later both a Georgia governor and a U.S. Senator.

The Walton petition — organized by Joseph Fisher, who identifies himself as a black Walton student — had 959 signatures by Wednesday morning.

Fisher acknowledges Walton’s status as a Founding Father. Then he adds:

“No one ever talks about how George Walton was a white supremacist, belonged to a slave owning family, and spent his political career championing white supremacy in Georgia by stripping Native Americans time and time again of their land. For a school well known on the national stage, it is sickening that they choose to carry themselves using a man who represents one thing: continuing white supremacy in the American South.”

Fisher goes on to note that Walton High School has only about 6 percent black students, while the average in Cobb County is about 30 percent. The school has a total enrollment of about 2,600.

Walton High School is regarded as one of the top schools in Georgia and has been spotlighted nationally in both Newsweek and U.S. News & World Reports. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a white student harassed a black student in February by using a smartphone app to make whipping noises.

A similar change.org petition — also supported by a private Facebook page — is circulating to rename Wheeler High School. The petition alleges that it was no coincidence that the school was named for a confederate general the same year Cobb County voted to desegregate its schools. It had more than 2,200 signatures by Wednesday morning.

About 38 percent of Wheeler’s 2,159 students are black. The school, one of Walton’s biggest rivals in sports, opened in 1965.

The school is named for Joseph Wheeler, a Confederate general who later served in the U.S. Army and eventually became a member of Congress from Alabama. According to Alabama.com, Wheeler is one of the few Confederate generals buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He’s also one of 11 Confederate generals with statues in the U.S. Capitol, targeted to be removed by Democrats in Congress.

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