Actress Julianne Moore and film producer Bruce Cohen have started a petition to rename their Virginia high school.
Wonderwall noted that they attended J.E.B Stuart High School in Fairfax County. James Ewell Brown Stuart was a general in the Confederate Army and the high school was named to protest the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling which ended segregation in public schools.
"Today, this school is attended by a diverse group of students who should not have to attend a school that bears the name of a man who fought to keep African Americans enslaved," the petition reads. "So we're calling on the Fairfax County School Board to rename it Thurgood Marshall High School. Not only was Marshall the first African American Supreme Court Justice and a civil rights leader, he was our neighbor and a member of our community."
The idea to change the name came about by a group of Stuart alum in the wake of the horrific shootings of parishioners during a bible study at a Charleston, South Carolina church last June. Nine people were killed; a tenth victim survived. The shooting suspect, Dylann Roof, posed on social media with the Confederate battle flag and his alleged motive was to start a race war.
Moore and Cohen’s Change.org petition currently has more than 25,000 signatures.
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