Nathan Bedford Forrest High School (Jacksonville, Florida)
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Nathan Bedford Forrest High School |
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| Established | 1959 |
| Type | Public school |
| Principal | Helene Kirkpatrick |
| Staff | 100 |
| Students | 1,800 |
| Location | Jacksonville, Florida, USA |
| Campus | Urban |
| Colors | Gray and Maroon |
| Nickname | Forrest |
| Mascot | Rebels |
| Website | [1] |
Nathan Bedford Forrest High School is a public high school located on Jacksonville, Florida's Westside. Forrest opened in 1959 in the Wesconnett neighborhood of Jacksonville, at the site of present-day J. E. B. Stuart Middle School. Forrest moved to its current location at Firestone Road in 1966.
The school is named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. As of 2006, it is only one of two high schools named after Forrest, the other located in his hometown of Chapel Hill, Tennessee.
When the school was to be opened in 1959, many Jacksonville organizations picked names for the new school, to be voted on at a school board meeting. After many ballots, "Nathan Bedford Forrest High School," picked by the Daughters of the Confederacy, won.[2]
From 1959 and into the 1960s, Forrest High School was an all white school. Beginning in the mid to late 1960s, school district rezoning introduced a more diverse population. Currently, over 1800 students attend Forrest, 51% of whom are African American.
In November 2006, the latest in a long line of petitions to change the name of the high school has been submitted to the Duval County School Board. Students from the Florida Community College at Jacksonville want to have the school renamed due to the perceived racism the school's namesake engenders.[3] The students want the school to be named after Eartha M. M. White, a Jacksonville native and philanthropist.
Forrest fields sports teams in football, baseball, basketball, volleyball and wrestling, among others. The Forrest football team are titled as 2006 Westside Champions beating out Robert E. Lee High School and rival school Edward H. White. The Forrest wrestling team are the 2007 Gateway Conference Champions, which marks the 19th time the school has won this award. The mascot is the Confederate Rebel, modeled in appearance after Colonel Reb, the former mascot of the University of Mississippi.
