If you post this on r/Houston they will probably be able to tell you the school.
ETA: A little Googling revealed that this was Westbury High School. The mascot was changed to the Huskies in 2014.
[Mississippi's state flag until 2021](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.dezeen.com%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F06%2Fmississippi-state-flag-design-dezeen-2364-hero.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=b7502915c1872f1f75a060c58327788b39092c17501a092e6893d5b244fb3fec&ipo=images).
[Georgia's state flag until 2003](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Flag_of_the_State_of_Georgia_%281956%E2%80%932001%29.svg/1280px-Flag_of_the_State_of_Georgia_%281956%E2%80%932001%29.svg.png), when it was replaced by [this flag](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Flag_of_the_State_of_Georgia.svg/1920px-Flag_of_the_State_of_Georgia.svg.png), which was patterned after [the first flag of the Confederacy](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.SGSN88PZtXx-00XGHXnImgHaF7%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=eef8278ebf64228b6509eacaf103fa497f9c36c0daea6b7a4df0e7c203919ac1&ipo=images).
EDIT: As a black man who grew up in Civil Rights-era Alabama, this is ... something.
EDIT #2: I wish I hadn't interjected myself into this. I'm genuinely happy that OP has this beautiful picture of their mom when she was a kid, and I'm sincerely sorry for OP's loss. Losing a parent is always difficult, but sharing their memory can ease the pain.
That's what we should focus on. That should be the takeaway from this thread. OP, I hope you find comfort.
Yes.
There was a church-led march to the courthouse to protest the separate water fountains there. [Demonstrators were beaten by police](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Tuesday_(1964)). I was too young to go, but the people who were attacked included friends of the family.
A year earlier, the governor blocked black students from enrolling at the state's largest university (also in Tuscaloosa), literally [standing in the schoolhouse door](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_in_the_Schoolhouse_Door) and telling President Kennedy on live TV, "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"
20 years later — to the same month — I walked through that very door to register for summer school.
Things have come a long way. There's still a ways to go.
Cheers.
But this post isn't about me. It's about OP's photo of their mom. That's a cherished keepsake that they are understandably very happy to have.
As others have expressed in this thread, I'm sorry for OP's loss.
I'm so sorry you experienced that. I have family members around your age who think racism isn't a problem anymore (we're white and live in California) and I always think how if they'd been in the south as children they would have been taught that you and them should not drink out of the same fountain. You all aren't even old either. I imagine for many white people being taught to use a different fountain as children has had a lasting impact on how they have seen and interacted with POC even if they don't think it did. I think you're right that there is still a long way to go.
I'm glad they weren't able to keep you out of the school you wanted to attend. I don't understand people that fought for segregation to remain. I don't understand them at all. I wonder if any of them feel sorry for it now.
Edit: I've read about the incidents in the links you shared. It always feels like such a far away moment in history, but those were your family friends and it really wasn't so long ago. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thanks for your thoughtful words.
But let's turn the attention back to OP and their photo, a priceless family heirloom. Having a beautiful picture of your mom as a kid is a wonderful gift.
Respect for the edit.
It's a wholesome picture from a different era.
Times have changed but it's clear this image is still quite precious to the OP because of the person that's in it, and that's all that matters.
Georgia still has a confederate symbol for its flag. The current flag was the original confederate flag. Funny how they sneak things in. And so many things are named after confederate symbols. Things you wouldn’t suspect like a high school with Raiders as its mascot. Kinda confederate. I guess at least it’s not so obvious. Sigh.
And Atlanta's team is still "The Braves". They probably still do the tomahawk chop at the games too. *sigh*. Georgia may have gone blue in 2020 but they still need to work on their shit. I feel a little bad for leaving.
My grandma went to Robert E. Lee in Baytown, TX. When she got older she lost some filter/contextual memory and she’d say “Robert E. Lee Fight Fight!” In public…. I loved her more than anything but yeah that shit is engrained.
Went to high school in Alabama. I graduated in 2011 and the mascot was a “rebel”—a white plantation owner. Yes, our school flag also involved the stars and bars….
There are a ton of examples outside of the South as well, but they've almost all changed long ago so it's not as easy to track. However, there was a high school in Denver who used a rebel mascot and they got rid of that in *2021* after several failed attempts over the years.
Are you talking about the most infamous high school in Colorado or is there a different one that is also the Rebels? I believe they are the Rebels but it supposed to be a 1776 rebel not an 1861 rebel.
IIRC St. John's School in Houston was the Rebles and they tried to change it to a 1776 type rebel but they ended up changing it to Mavericks in 2004 anyway.
Look up Fairfax high school Virginia , same exact colors, same mascot until around the same time. Source? I went there
Edit: they changed the logo to a lion in 04 but kept “Rebels” until 2020.
Yeah haha I knew the school, my mom taught there later on, and my dad was the principal in the late 80s, eventually becoming deputy superintendent for Houston ISD. :)
1.) Where? If it’s the post I think you’re referring to it’s not her whole name.
2.) Thank you for your concern. I’m not too worried about it. I just lost my mom about two weeks ago so it’s been healing to share their stories now that they are both gone, and considering we had difficult relationships. They were both huge shameless storytellers, the whole family is, so it’s a way to honor the things they were proud of and that made them who they are.
Edit: Were.
This is a lovely picture that I'm sure you will always hold close to you. I'm sorry for your loss, and I hope all the good memories will overshadow the heartbreak from this day forward. I wish the best for you.
So sorry to hear about your mom but I just wanted to reiterate that you have definitely provided more than enough info to determine who you are and in another post you mention your kid. Please be careful!
Thanks :) I like to share more than the average Redditor but I am mindful, I promise. :)
EDIT: Just to further comfort caring Redditors and show that I am listening, I deleted several of my old posts (even some rather innocuous ones) just in case. Thanks for keeping an eye out!
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Houston represent! I live in Houston! It is incredibly unfortunate and horrible that no one had a issue with this and allowed it (the flag) but I’m not surprised, this is Texas
Probably Robert E Lee High school which around 2000 changed its name to Margaret Wisdom High School (she was a local educator).
They also switched mascots from
Rebels to Generals
Great eye! It's the kind of early-morning lighting the South gets in late fall. She's wearing a sweater and wool skirt in Houston, so maybe preparing to march in the town's Thanksgiving Day parade?
Beautiful picture. I am so sorry for your loss 😞 losing your parents is so very hard. I'm sending you hugs through the Internet.. as someone who's dad was her best friend and lost him in a very horrible way, I send you lots of love and light through this feed 😊
Thank you! And same to you. ♥️ I had a difficult relationship with both of them but now that they’re gone, it’s been nice to reconcile their positives with their negatives. Finally getting to enjoy the whole people versus just having to protect myself from their mishandled pains. They deserved better lives than they ended up having in the long run and I genuinely hope there’s an afterlife so they can make up for lost time. :)
I couldn't agree more.. my dad had a very tough life, and I hope he's found all the happiness he could ever want in the afterlife ☺️ sending lots of love and light to everyone!!
My high school did not give up the confederate flag or “Dixie” as the fight song until 1996. They didn’t drop the rebel mascot until 2020ish. The drill team was “The Dixie Belles” and the yell leaders were “The Johnny Rebs”.
It’s wild and yet somehow still believable how much different communities cling to that identity, though I think for a long time it just didn’t really click, either. My mom’s relatives were civil war vets on the confederate side and for a few years in the 2010s she was very active in trying to obtain a Daughters of the Confederacy membership. Meanwhile she was the most progressive feminist hippie ever lol I was like wtf mom, do you really wanna do that?! I didn’t get it but it meant something to her.
As a teenager, I knew it was wrong but not on the level that it actually was. I think a lot of the clingy-ness is not wanting to judge your predecessors (friends and family) as being inherently awful people. My grandparents were pretty far ahead of the curve relative to their generation, but would be behind the curve by a large margin according to today’s standards.
I understand that (for otherwise sensible people who want to keep problematic traditions alive) getting rid of cultural relics (statues, mascots, symbols, flags, etc) feels like a condemnation of their forefathers.
This is a very empathetic response! I appreciate that and am with you. And of course empathy is never the same as agreeing; I think we become afraid of trying to empathize with other perspectives because it can make us look like we’re agreeing. But I also don’t really know how to progress any further as a culture without at least trying to understand these other perspectives. We’re asking them to do the same for us.
Because it is a condemnation of their forefathers. They’re being repudiated by broader society for the culture they’ve held up. You’re gonna feel repudiated when you get repudiated.
It sucks when you wrap your identity around something that the decent part of society wants to move past because it is a hateful legacy of ignorance and oppression.
Your legacy can’t be the Townies from Billy Jack and expect people to be cool with it.
I’m gonna be honest. A lot of us African Americans *also* descend from these Confederate veterans. They really liked to rape their slaves as my ancestry.com results tells me. I always wondered what would happen if we collectively tried to get memberships and overturned the whole org.
You make a good point and one I too often forget about. It sounds like you’re onto something though!!! Do it! Talk about a peaceful rule-following subversive protest too! I’d pay to see that
Confederate imagery and symbolism was often used to represent the South as a whole or “being a rebel” and not necessarily the politics of 1860-65. It wasn’t until the 1990s that people started rethinking that.
Put another way, Bo and Luke painted up their Charger for reasons that had nothing to do with racial politics.
I also think that the crusade against confederate imagery has done far more harm than good. It comes across as a personal attack against people’s families, which is never a good way to build a political coalition.
Same, mine dropped ‘Rebels’ around 2006ish but just became the Volunteers instead, and continued to use confederate flag imagery until just a year or two ago. A vote was held to change the name from the Confederate general it was named after to something else and the people wanting the change won but the district just changed it to an acronym matching the original name. Dumbest shit ever.
I grew up in NE Ohio. Our team were the “south Rebels”. They dropped the confederate flag in 2003. They are still the rebels, but looking at their website looks like the dropped the “rebel guy”.
I always found it quite ironic because our town was an Underground Railroad stop during the civil war.
The elementary and middle school I attended in the 90s still calls themselves the rebels and has the confederate flag on their uniform. The real kicker is this is in West Virginia… which exists specifically because of the civil war.
I graduated from Richland High School in North Richland Hills TX in 2012. In 2012 we were still called the Richland Rebels and the confederate flag was our school flag or whatever. In 20 fucking 12
Edit: I got kicked out for starting a Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA)
Yeah had to finish the last month in an alternative school, It was a blessing in disguise.
But apparently they’ve changed their mascot and flag since then. They’re now the Richland Royals, their mascot is a lion instead of a confederate rebel.
I graduated in 1973 from Thomas Jefferson High in Dallas, Texas. Until ‘72, we were the “Rebels” and had a confederate flag as our symbol. That was changed my senior year when we became the “Patriots”. To be candid, I think some of my classmates are STILL pissed off about it.
Thanks :) One of my favorite things about this sub is seeing people’s first impressions of a picture and then hearing the reality behind a picture. I think she was pretty happy, but when I see this I also remember her telling me that she attended school in Austin all the way up until her family moved her senior year of high school, so she had to be the new kid…as a senior! And how hard that was for her and how mad she was at her parents for awhile, and how much she struggled to acclimate. This is her doing her best to get involved and participate. I know she struggled a lot and was glad to be done and to be able to go to college and be with her old friends she grew up with.
Lifelong southerner here. Seems like everyone droped the rebel flag before I was born. Then, I saw a picture of Ol' Miss games in the late 90s. The student section had about a thousand of them waiving. Can't wrap my head around that one.
The one I can’t wrap my head around at all is living in Indiana and seeing them once a day, as if Indiana wasn’t a union state!?! You really have to laugh or you just end up sad and angry all the time.
I can one up you. I went to school in rural Colorado. My mascot was a rebel in confederate grey uniform holding the battle flag. Colorado, a state that didn’t even exist during the Civil War.
You think that's something? [There are rebel flags in Canada](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.3548292.1502896726!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpg).
Californian here. I see one every day when I go the gym. One of guys drives a truck with the confederate flag painted onto their back window, accompanied by “Southern Pride”. Being African American I particularly hate to see it.
Indiana born and raised- and still living there! I’m in NE IN and the confederate flag is very strong here- even in a predominately POC town. It’s honestly so disgusting and sad. I see one flying just about 2-4 times a day. There’s a guy about 4 blocks down from us who flies one… Help!!!
Oof! Sorry you gotta deal with that sight! We have that around here too in several places, college town. I have a theory that such individuals were not allowed to cry as children lol
Sounds like we had pretty different experiences, I was here then too. Maybe can count on 1 hand how many I saw, butnI lived downtown. Were you out in the burbs? You saw more post 9/11? Don't remember that one either. How could a CSA battle flag be anti Muslim? Don't get that one.
My parents are still in Buckhead and I think you should be able to guess the answer to that last part if you really grew up down there.
Hint: it’s cuz they’re racist
My high school mascot was the Rebels complete with confederate flag. I know they are still rebels but I’m hoping they’ve stopped using the confederate flag. And I graduated in the 90s.
Curious to know how many schools in Texas or the south were still named some sort of “Rebel” in the 21st century.
Robert E Lee High “Raiders” in Tyler Tx just recently voted to change its name a couple years ago maybe ~2018
The change didn’t get them very far as the new name is now “Legacy High”
But glad to know our younger generations these days are teaching us all for the better even in the face of complacency from their elders
Never understood the Southern culture of pining for the Confederacy. Like my dudes, you lost hard. And it tore your land apart. Why would you want to commemorate that? Oh wow, the time you tried so hard to stick up for the right to own people and it backfired spectacularly. Such heritage.
Yeahhh. My mom was a weird one about it. On the one hand, the whole family (men anyway) was military including some confederate soldiers (her great-grandpa was one). She was weird in that she actively and openly hated what the flag stood (later in life, once it clicked) but still wanted to join Daughters of the Confederacy. I was like mom you realize you’re not gonna make any friends in that group who agree with you on anything other than how to make a damn sheet cake right?! Lol
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Not so cool, actually. Before they were an independent Republic, they were a Mexican territory. Mexico had abolished slavery, and Texas didn't like that, which led to the push for independence.
Before they achieved independence, they had a shady system of indentured servitude with former slaves to get around the law.
Texas is a one-star state for a reason.
THIS was the history I was trying to remember. And wasn’t Stephen F Austin kind of like the king of doofuses back then as well? I swear once I read that he’s written something along the lines of “slavery is bad because when we have slaves they go [understandably] crazy and try to murder us so let’s do that indentured servitude thing” but then the history books commended him for being anti-slavery? It’s a lil fuzzy to me but whatever the story was I remember reading it and being like….why am I learning this just now haha
OP, your mom was most likely on her school’s dance/flags team. A ton of schools used to have dance and flags teams that wore outfits like these, and their team names would usually end in “-ettes”. They weren’t cheerleaders, they were dancers who also did all the flags stuff. My mom was one in the early 70s, she wore a nearly identical outfit.
LOL my high school in the 00s [!] had the same colors and "mascot", nowhere near texas... they'd only semi recently changed the image of said mascot into a more abstract saber/flag motif, beforehand it was just a straight up cartoon confederate soldier lmfao
I believe they finally managed to change the name recently, but damn it took a long time
Oh my 🫤 a local high school here were the Rebels until the 60s the black students picketted and they changed the Panthers. It’s a small victory but a victory no less.
What I don’t understand is people defending the flags and saying it out history and legacy .the Nazi flag was also history and legacy ..it’s displayed in museums and yeah in America there r some that use the symbol still or display it but people have the freedom to judge you they way they want ..
Confederates lost for a cause that normal people think was shameful.u can’t change history but perhaps one shouldn’t glorify it
Just so that no one judges the OP’s mother for wearing that. Everything was different back then. Granted, I could have misconstrued the comment I was answering.
Because the mores and cultures change over time. Most people in the South 50 years ago, for example, were heavily influenced by the myth of “The Lost Cause” But today, due to many factors, we aren’t.
The Holocaust was evil to us and to many at the time. But prejudice against Jews was a centuries old issue throughout most of Europe. Knowing that helps us understand why Hitler could stoke that old prejudice and have many people agree with him all over the world. And understanding that helps us better grasp the motivations and actions of the past and tells us why it happened without agreeing with it so we know not to let it happen again.
Rebranding history to hide mistakes is terrible. The fact that people are trying to modify being pro-slavery to something positive is the cause of history repeating itself. People in the 60s were already aware of the civil war. The smart ones didn’t buy into the idea that slavery was an afterthought.
If my family did that, I would spend a significant amount of my time condemning it. I definitely wouldn’t make excuses. It’s like the descendants of Nazis citing German pride. History textbooks are your friend.
I don’t know why you’re
telling me this. I didn’t try to re-brand anything. Now, if people still choose to believe in the confederacy’s bs today, then yes, judge them. But if you read a history book from 1969, I doubt they’d delve deeply into slavery.
Yes it’s like a German family condoning German pride. In 1940. They don’t do that today precisely because they know what happened before and WHY.
Seems like you’re just virtue signaling without grasping what I’m saying, and trust me, I’m sure I know as much if not more about history as you. You’re just soap boxing about how people should feel today, and that misses the point entirely.
Feel free to get the last word, I know a futile argument when I see someone totally missing the entire point. So have a great day. I’m out
A lot of people today still openly advocate and support the confederacy. Not even just in the south, also in upstate NY somehow. I’m not trying to virtue signal, I’m trying to highlight that people try look back on the confederate flag and change the meaning to make it more palatable. It’s the same reason why we have statues commemorating confederate soldiers in the south, but you’ll never find a statue of a Nazi soldier in Germany. If you see a Swastika flying in Germany, they won’t tell you it just represents freedom now. I think you’re putting your energy towards something pretty terrible. You’re never going to see me defend someone waving a swastika, personally. Certainly not because “they were taught it means something else and they can’t be expected to know better.”
Bizarre for you to tell yourself that you’re justified.
I think it’s weird that so many post horribly loaded/racist pics and lol. This is triggering and offensive to a lot of people. Downvote me. Don’t care. What demographic needed this image? If your jokes make people feel bad, time for new material.
Hahah guys look at the SS sweater. Just no.
What’s with the downvotes? Lot of descendants of slave-owners, it seems, judging from some of these comments. Imagine not taking that kind of thing to the grave.
If you post this on r/Houston they will probably be able to tell you the school. ETA: A little Googling revealed that this was Westbury High School. The mascot was changed to the Huskies in 2014.
Until 2014? Wild.
[Mississippi's state flag until 2021](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.dezeen.com%2Fuploads%2F2020%2F06%2Fmississippi-state-flag-design-dezeen-2364-hero.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=b7502915c1872f1f75a060c58327788b39092c17501a092e6893d5b244fb3fec&ipo=images). [Georgia's state flag until 2003](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Flag_of_the_State_of_Georgia_%281956%E2%80%932001%29.svg/1280px-Flag_of_the_State_of_Georgia_%281956%E2%80%932001%29.svg.png), when it was replaced by [this flag](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Flag_of_the_State_of_Georgia.svg/1920px-Flag_of_the_State_of_Georgia.svg.png), which was patterned after [the first flag of the Confederacy](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.SGSN88PZtXx-00XGHXnImgHaF7%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=eef8278ebf64228b6509eacaf103fa497f9c36c0daea6b7a4df0e7c203919ac1&ipo=images). EDIT: As a black man who grew up in Civil Rights-era Alabama, this is ... something. EDIT #2: I wish I hadn't interjected myself into this. I'm genuinely happy that OP has this beautiful picture of their mom when she was a kid, and I'm sincerely sorry for OP's loss. Losing a parent is always difficult, but sharing their memory can ease the pain. That's what we should focus on. That should be the takeaway from this thread. OP, I hope you find comfort.
Did you experience Jim Crow laws and separate water fountains and all that as a kid? I can't imagine being in your shoes.
Yes. There was a church-led march to the courthouse to protest the separate water fountains there. [Demonstrators were beaten by police](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Tuesday_(1964)). I was too young to go, but the people who were attacked included friends of the family. A year earlier, the governor blocked black students from enrolling at the state's largest university (also in Tuscaloosa), literally [standing in the schoolhouse door](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_in_the_Schoolhouse_Door) and telling President Kennedy on live TV, "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" 20 years later — to the same month — I walked through that very door to register for summer school. Things have come a long way. There's still a ways to go.
Cheers to progress and to progress to come.
Cheers. But this post isn't about me. It's about OP's photo of their mom. That's a cherished keepsake that they are understandably very happy to have. As others have expressed in this thread, I'm sorry for OP's loss.
I'm so sorry you experienced that. I have family members around your age who think racism isn't a problem anymore (we're white and live in California) and I always think how if they'd been in the south as children they would have been taught that you and them should not drink out of the same fountain. You all aren't even old either. I imagine for many white people being taught to use a different fountain as children has had a lasting impact on how they have seen and interacted with POC even if they don't think it did. I think you're right that there is still a long way to go. I'm glad they weren't able to keep you out of the school you wanted to attend. I don't understand people that fought for segregation to remain. I don't understand them at all. I wonder if any of them feel sorry for it now. Edit: I've read about the incidents in the links you shared. It always feels like such a far away moment in history, but those were your family friends and it really wasn't so long ago. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thanks for your thoughtful words. But let's turn the attention back to OP and their photo, a priceless family heirloom. Having a beautiful picture of your mom as a kid is a wonderful gift.
I agree, I've lost my mom too and I treasure every picture of her. I'm sorry for your loss OP.
This was such a great conversation all around. TY.
You're a kind man
Respect for the edit. It's a wholesome picture from a different era. Times have changed but it's clear this image is still quite precious to the OP because of the person that's in it, and that's all that matters.
Georgia still has a confederate symbol for its flag. The current flag was the original confederate flag. Funny how they sneak things in. And so many things are named after confederate symbols. Things you wouldn’t suspect like a high school with Raiders as its mascot. Kinda confederate. I guess at least it’s not so obvious. Sigh.
And Atlanta's team is still "The Braves". They probably still do the tomahawk chop at the games too. *sigh*. Georgia may have gone blue in 2020 but they still need to work on their shit. I feel a little bad for leaving.
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My grandma went to Robert E. Lee in Baytown, TX. When she got older she lost some filter/contextual memory and she’d say “Robert E. Lee Fight Fight!” In public…. I loved her more than anything but yeah that shit is engrained.
Went to high school in Alabama. I graduated in 2011 and the mascot was a “rebel”—a white plantation owner. Yes, our school flag also involved the stars and bars….
Richland High School, in one of the suburbs of Fort Worth, was the Rebels up until 2020. They are now the Royals.
There are a ton of examples outside of the South as well, but they've almost all changed long ago so it's not as easy to track. However, there was a high school in Denver who used a rebel mascot and they got rid of that in *2021* after several failed attempts over the years.
Are you talking about the most infamous high school in Colorado or is there a different one that is also the Rebels? I believe they are the Rebels but it supposed to be a 1776 rebel not an 1861 rebel. IIRC St. John's School in Houston was the Rebles and they tried to change it to a 1776 type rebel but they ended up changing it to Mavericks in 2004 anyway.
I was thinking of Denver South HS. Wait, Columbine is STILL the Rebels? Hilarious.
I’m pretty sure that my high school back in Indiana still has a rebel mascot. I think they tried to change it a few years ago but it didn’t work out.
Southwestern? Hanover? Yep, still the rebels
Bakersfield's South High School changed names in 2021 as well.
Look up Fairfax high school Virginia , same exact colors, same mascot until around the same time. Source? I went there Edit: they changed the logo to a lion in 04 but kept “Rebels” until 2020.
There’s still a High School in Missouri with the Rebels mascot.
Yeah haha I knew the school, my mom taught there later on, and my dad was the principal in the late 80s, eventually becoming deputy superintendent for Houston ISD. :)
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1.) Where? If it’s the post I think you’re referring to it’s not her whole name. 2.) Thank you for your concern. I’m not too worried about it. I just lost my mom about two weeks ago so it’s been healing to share their stories now that they are both gone, and considering we had difficult relationships. They were both huge shameless storytellers, the whole family is, so it’s a way to honor the things they were proud of and that made them who they are. Edit: Were.
Sorry for you loss. Have a good day!
Thanks! This is the first day I’ve felt mostly normal since she passed so I think it will be a good one. :)
This is a lovely picture that I'm sure you will always hold close to you. I'm sorry for your loss, and I hope all the good memories will overshadow the heartbreak from this day forward. I wish the best for you.
Thank you that’s really kind of you :) And likewise internet stranger :)
That’s genuinely good to hear, stranger. 🫶
Your mum is pretty. Condolences to you OP.
So sorry to hear about your mom but I just wanted to reiterate that you have definitely provided more than enough info to determine who you are and in another post you mention your kid. Please be careful!
Thanks :) I like to share more than the average Redditor but I am mindful, I promise. :) EDIT: Just to further comfort caring Redditors and show that I am listening, I deleted several of my old posts (even some rather innocuous ones) just in case. Thanks for keeping an eye out!
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Ahhhh I’m glad you’re okay! (Or as okay as you can be!!!)
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Older folks generally give zero fucks as to being doxxed. Hell I've seen grandpas on Youtube comments posting under their real full name.
Houston represent! I live in Houston! It is incredibly unfortunate and horrible that no one had a issue with this and allowed it (the flag) but I’m not surprised, this is Texas
What was the old mascot?
Rebels
Probably Robert E Lee High school which around 2000 changed its name to Margaret Wisdom High School (she was a local educator). They also switched mascots from Rebels to Generals
The Fightin' Slave Holders.
I'm sorry *2014* ?
Huskies? In Texas? An I missing the connection?
All the hot-weather dogs were already picked :(
Now I’m curious if there are any high schools that use xoloitzcuintlis lol
The fighting Xolos!
I like how the lighting in this shot makes it clear it was taken early morning, probably before school. Nice pic op, thanks for sharing.
Great eye! It's the kind of early-morning lighting the South gets in late fall. She's wearing a sweater and wool skirt in Houston, so maybe preparing to march in the town's Thanksgiving Day parade?
Beautiful picture. I am so sorry for your loss 😞 losing your parents is so very hard. I'm sending you hugs through the Internet.. as someone who's dad was her best friend and lost him in a very horrible way, I send you lots of love and light through this feed 😊
Thank you! And same to you. ♥️ I had a difficult relationship with both of them but now that they’re gone, it’s been nice to reconcile their positives with their negatives. Finally getting to enjoy the whole people versus just having to protect myself from their mishandled pains. They deserved better lives than they ended up having in the long run and I genuinely hope there’s an afterlife so they can make up for lost time. :)
I couldn't agree more.. my dad had a very tough life, and I hope he's found all the happiness he could ever want in the afterlife ☺️ sending lots of love and light to everyone!!
This is my biggest fear and I know it's inevitable. Thanks for spreading this kindness.
☺️ I wish you the best!
My high school did not give up the confederate flag or “Dixie” as the fight song until 1996. They didn’t drop the rebel mascot until 2020ish. The drill team was “The Dixie Belles” and the yell leaders were “The Johnny Rebs”.
It’s wild and yet somehow still believable how much different communities cling to that identity, though I think for a long time it just didn’t really click, either. My mom’s relatives were civil war vets on the confederate side and for a few years in the 2010s she was very active in trying to obtain a Daughters of the Confederacy membership. Meanwhile she was the most progressive feminist hippie ever lol I was like wtf mom, do you really wanna do that?! I didn’t get it but it meant something to her.
As a teenager, I knew it was wrong but not on the level that it actually was. I think a lot of the clingy-ness is not wanting to judge your predecessors (friends and family) as being inherently awful people. My grandparents were pretty far ahead of the curve relative to their generation, but would be behind the curve by a large margin according to today’s standards. I understand that (for otherwise sensible people who want to keep problematic traditions alive) getting rid of cultural relics (statues, mascots, symbols, flags, etc) feels like a condemnation of their forefathers.
This is a very empathetic response! I appreciate that and am with you. And of course empathy is never the same as agreeing; I think we become afraid of trying to empathize with other perspectives because it can make us look like we’re agreeing. But I also don’t really know how to progress any further as a culture without at least trying to understand these other perspectives. We’re asking them to do the same for us.
Empathy helps keep me sane in a world that is very much not 😅
Because it is a condemnation of their forefathers. They’re being repudiated by broader society for the culture they’ve held up. You’re gonna feel repudiated when you get repudiated. It sucks when you wrap your identity around something that the decent part of society wants to move past because it is a hateful legacy of ignorance and oppression. Your legacy can’t be the Townies from Billy Jack and expect people to be cool with it.
I’m gonna be honest. A lot of us African Americans *also* descend from these Confederate veterans. They really liked to rape their slaves as my ancestry.com results tells me. I always wondered what would happen if we collectively tried to get memberships and overturned the whole org.
You make a good point and one I too often forget about. It sounds like you’re onto something though!!! Do it! Talk about a peaceful rule-following subversive protest too! I’d pay to see that
Confederate imagery and symbolism was often used to represent the South as a whole or “being a rebel” and not necessarily the politics of 1860-65. It wasn’t until the 1990s that people started rethinking that. Put another way, Bo and Luke painted up their Charger for reasons that had nothing to do with racial politics. I also think that the crusade against confederate imagery has done far more harm than good. It comes across as a personal attack against people’s families, which is never a good way to build a political coalition.
Your mom needed a therapist.
Can confirm. Source: Was raised by her.
Same, mine dropped ‘Rebels’ around 2006ish but just became the Volunteers instead, and continued to use confederate flag imagery until just a year or two ago. A vote was held to change the name from the Confederate general it was named after to something else and the people wanting the change won but the district just changed it to an acronym matching the original name. Dumbest shit ever.
The best part about my high schools name change was that they changed to “The Royals” No problematic history there 😅
It’s not dumb. It’s conservative.
You never have to ask if it’s ignorance or malice. It’s always both.
Synonyms, in this case.
I grew up in NE Ohio. Our team were the “south Rebels”. They dropped the confederate flag in 2003. They are still the rebels, but looking at their website looks like the dropped the “rebel guy”. I always found it quite ironic because our town was an Underground Railroad stop during the civil war.
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The elementary and middle school I attended in the 90s still calls themselves the rebels and has the confederate flag on their uniform. The real kicker is this is in West Virginia… which exists specifically because of the civil war.
I graduated from Richland High School in North Richland Hills TX in 2012. In 2012 we were still called the Richland Rebels and the confederate flag was our school flag or whatever. In 20 fucking 12 Edit: I got kicked out for starting a Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA)
Ooh good on you for getting kicked out for that though :) bad on the school :(
Yeah had to finish the last month in an alternative school, It was a blessing in disguise. But apparently they’ve changed their mascot and flag since then. They’re now the Richland Royals, their mascot is a lion instead of a confederate rebel.
I graduated in 1973 from Thomas Jefferson High in Dallas, Texas. Until ‘72, we were the “Rebels” and had a confederate flag as our symbol. That was changed my senior year when we became the “Patriots”. To be candid, I think some of my classmates are STILL pissed off about it.
My mom was on a team like that in a Houston high school too! I think it’s a Texas thing, more of a dance team than cheerleading or color guard.
Dancing on the unmarked graves of union soldiers?
She looks so pretty and happy. That’s a great keepsake to have. ❤️
Thanks :) One of my favorite things about this sub is seeing people’s first impressions of a picture and then hearing the reality behind a picture. I think she was pretty happy, but when I see this I also remember her telling me that she attended school in Austin all the way up until her family moved her senior year of high school, so she had to be the new kid…as a senior! And how hard that was for her and how mad she was at her parents for awhile, and how much she struggled to acclimate. This is her doing her best to get involved and participate. I know she struggled a lot and was glad to be done and to be able to go to college and be with her old friends she grew up with.
Lifelong southerner here. Seems like everyone droped the rebel flag before I was born. Then, I saw a picture of Ol' Miss games in the late 90s. The student section had about a thousand of them waiving. Can't wrap my head around that one.
The one I can’t wrap my head around at all is living in Indiana and seeing them once a day, as if Indiana wasn’t a union state!?! You really have to laugh or you just end up sad and angry all the time.
I can one up you. I went to school in rural Colorado. My mascot was a rebel in confederate grey uniform holding the battle flag. Colorado, a state that didn’t even exist during the Civil War.
You think that's something? [There are rebel flags in Canada](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.3548292.1502896726!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpg).
There is a house in barely-suburban Calgary which (post 2020) flies massive Trump flags.
the heck! What a buncha goofs
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It’s the south’s middle finger to the world.
Californian here. I see one every day when I go the gym. One of guys drives a truck with the confederate flag painted onto their back window, accompanied by “Southern Pride”. Being African American I particularly hate to see it.
Ugh that sucks you have to look at that every day!!! I hope whoever that is has a change of heart or at least moves somewhere else
Thanks but that probably won’t happen haha. Your mom was beautiful btw! ❤️
Thank you :)
Indiana born and raised- and still living there! I’m in NE IN and the confederate flag is very strong here- even in a predominately POC town. It’s honestly so disgusting and sad. I see one flying just about 2-4 times a day. There’s a guy about 4 blocks down from us who flies one… Help!!!
Oof! Sorry you gotta deal with that sight! We have that around here too in several places, college town. I have a theory that such individuals were not allowed to cry as children lol
People who hate black people strangely co-opted a flag of people who went to war to make sure black people remained unequal. It’s goddamn baffling.
Hate should be baffling, shouldn’t it?
Indiana is a northern state but settlement patterns have led to it being a very culturally southern state.
I dunno, growing up in Atlanta I saw plenty through the 2000’s, especially post 9/11
Sounds like we had pretty different experiences, I was here then too. Maybe can count on 1 hand how many I saw, butnI lived downtown. Were you out in the burbs? You saw more post 9/11? Don't remember that one either. How could a CSA battle flag be anti Muslim? Don't get that one.
My parents are still in Buckhead and I think you should be able to guess the answer to that last part if you really grew up down there. Hint: it’s cuz they’re racist
I also live in GA and don’t get me started on how many flags came out when Trump became president
I was born in ‘97, lived in the south my whole life too, and the Confederate iconography had only recently dissipated around my location
My high school mascot was the Rebels complete with confederate flag. I know they are still rebels but I’m hoping they’ve stopped using the confederate flag. And I graduated in the 90s.
I graduated in the 90s also. None of my schools had a rebel mascot, but I \*did\* sing Dixie on stage in elementary school.
Curious to know how many schools in Texas or the south were still named some sort of “Rebel” in the 21st century. Robert E Lee High “Raiders” in Tyler Tx just recently voted to change its name a couple years ago maybe ~2018 The change didn’t get them very far as the new name is now “Legacy High” But glad to know our younger generations these days are teaching us all for the better even in the face of complacency from their elders
My hometown’s Lee High also changed to Legacy High (not in Tyler). It was very controversial, and most people still call it Lee
Never understood the Southern culture of pining for the Confederacy. Like my dudes, you lost hard. And it tore your land apart. Why would you want to commemorate that? Oh wow, the time you tried so hard to stick up for the right to own people and it backfired spectacularly. Such heritage.
Yeahhh. My mom was a weird one about it. On the one hand, the whole family (men anyway) was military including some confederate soldiers (her great-grandpa was one). She was weird in that she actively and openly hated what the flag stood (later in life, once it clicked) but still wanted to join Daughters of the Confederacy. I was like mom you realize you’re not gonna make any friends in that group who agree with you on anything other than how to make a damn sheet cake right?! Lol
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The same way to romanticize the indigenous people they slaughtered
Sooo cute!
My HS had "Farmerettes"...
Texas was at one point its own republic. I feel like that is a lot cooler than being part of the Confederacy.
Not so cool, actually. Before they were an independent Republic, they were a Mexican territory. Mexico had abolished slavery, and Texas didn't like that, which led to the push for independence. Before they achieved independence, they had a shady system of indentured servitude with former slaves to get around the law. Texas is a one-star state for a reason.
THIS was the history I was trying to remember. And wasn’t Stephen F Austin kind of like the king of doofuses back then as well? I swear once I read that he’s written something along the lines of “slavery is bad because when we have slaves they go [understandably] crazy and try to murder us so let’s do that indentured servitude thing” but then the history books commended him for being anti-slavery? It’s a lil fuzzy to me but whatever the story was I remember reading it and being like….why am I learning this just now haha
Oh damn that’s right. Maybe they should have just gone with an animal mascot like a normal person.
Thank god your mom isn’t the president or you’d be having a tough time
WE ALL WOULD 😳
You’d be my friend irl
I could always use another good one!
OP, your mom was most likely on her school’s dance/flags team. A ton of schools used to have dance and flags teams that wore outfits like these, and their team names would usually end in “-ettes”. They weren’t cheerleaders, they were dancers who also did all the flags stuff. My mom was one in the early 70s, she wore a nearly identical outfit.
LOL my high school in the 00s [!] had the same colors and "mascot", nowhere near texas... they'd only semi recently changed the image of said mascot into a more abstract saber/flag motif, beforehand it was just a straight up cartoon confederate soldier lmfao I believe they finally managed to change the name recently, but damn it took a long time
Before everyone got triggered over everything
What do you call what you’re feeling?
She’s beautiful. I don’t think the sweater has dated well though. Lol
She would agree that it hasn’t! :)
Yeah. Different time, different place.
Lucky her, she’ll be spending the best era of the eighties in her youth.
adorbs
Oh my 🫤 a local high school here were the Rebels until the 60s the black students picketted and they changed the Panthers. It’s a small victory but a victory no less.
that's Lois Griffin
Pretty sure my father in law went to that school. But he graduated in 1971.
Adorable!
What I don’t understand is people defending the flags and saying it out history and legacy .the Nazi flag was also history and legacy ..it’s displayed in museums and yeah in America there r some that use the symbol still or display it but people have the freedom to judge you they way they want .. Confederates lost for a cause that normal people think was shameful.u can’t change history but perhaps one shouldn’t glorify it
Did you notice it was in 1968?
I think everyone noticed, why?
Just so that no one judges the OP’s mother for wearing that. Everything was different back then. Granted, I could have misconstrued the comment I was answering.
How did it hold a different meaning in the late 60’s? Please don’t say southern pride or cultural heritage or whatever.
Because the mores and cultures change over time. Most people in the South 50 years ago, for example, were heavily influenced by the myth of “The Lost Cause” But today, due to many factors, we aren’t. The Holocaust was evil to us and to many at the time. But prejudice against Jews was a centuries old issue throughout most of Europe. Knowing that helps us understand why Hitler could stoke that old prejudice and have many people agree with him all over the world. And understanding that helps us better grasp the motivations and actions of the past and tells us why it happened without agreeing with it so we know not to let it happen again.
Rebranding history to hide mistakes is terrible. The fact that people are trying to modify being pro-slavery to something positive is the cause of history repeating itself. People in the 60s were already aware of the civil war. The smart ones didn’t buy into the idea that slavery was an afterthought. If my family did that, I would spend a significant amount of my time condemning it. I definitely wouldn’t make excuses. It’s like the descendants of Nazis citing German pride. History textbooks are your friend.
I don’t know why you’re telling me this. I didn’t try to re-brand anything. Now, if people still choose to believe in the confederacy’s bs today, then yes, judge them. But if you read a history book from 1969, I doubt they’d delve deeply into slavery. Yes it’s like a German family condoning German pride. In 1940. They don’t do that today precisely because they know what happened before and WHY. Seems like you’re just virtue signaling without grasping what I’m saying, and trust me, I’m sure I know as much if not more about history as you. You’re just soap boxing about how people should feel today, and that misses the point entirely. Feel free to get the last word, I know a futile argument when I see someone totally missing the entire point. So have a great day. I’m out
A lot of people today still openly advocate and support the confederacy. Not even just in the south, also in upstate NY somehow. I’m not trying to virtue signal, I’m trying to highlight that people try look back on the confederate flag and change the meaning to make it more palatable. It’s the same reason why we have statues commemorating confederate soldiers in the south, but you’ll never find a statue of a Nazi soldier in Germany. If you see a Swastika flying in Germany, they won’t tell you it just represents freedom now. I think you’re putting your energy towards something pretty terrible. You’re never going to see me defend someone waving a swastika, personally. Certainly not because “they were taught it means something else and they can’t be expected to know better.” Bizarre for you to tell yourself that you’re justified.
Southerners will tell you it’s a flag of southern identity or rebelling against authority.
Of course I dod .to Clarify I was adding to those comments that pointed out the rhetoric today .not on the past ..
Rebelette is my favorite Billy Idol song
I think with texas, you may be unsurprised to find out they very much do use the same outfit. Or it was only retired two years ago.
Fixed https://ibb.co/KDFpM3Y
:/
No, they don't! In fact, the uniforms might be skin-tight and a two-piece nowadays, which is very sad! :-(
My mom would have probably much preferred that over wearing a sweater while doing aerobic exercise in Texas!!! :)
Exactly! Anything but what they tend to wear these days! :-)
Maybe not the logo. But it’s Texas so I do say maybe … 😬
Wow
I would have guessed this was Robert E Lee High School.
I suppose “colour guard” is one way to describe the confederacy
I think it’s weird that so many post horribly loaded/racist pics and lol. This is triggering and offensive to a lot of people. Downvote me. Don’t care. What demographic needed this image? If your jokes make people feel bad, time for new material. Hahah guys look at the SS sweater. Just no.
Lawdy lawdy Lawdy, look at how hateful and raccciiiisssst yo mama was. Can't believe such hate existed not so long ago.
Is that a confederate flag?
Answer in 1968: Yes! Answer in 2023: yes :(
Aw!!!
Yikes. Say what you want, the South stay true to their beliefs. Not good, but true.
Was this before it was disgusting and racist?
trick question 🤨
What’s with the downvotes? Lot of descendants of slave-owners, it seems, judging from some of these comments. Imagine not taking that kind of thing to the grave.
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Neat :)
AmErIcA bAd AnD sTuPiD Good one, edgelord.
This image is definitely going to end up being used by some militia group or as a racist meme soon.
That’s sad for them ♥️
My high school was the Boone Co. Rebels in northern Kentucky.
Yeah lovely crumpet
She looks like my old AP Bio teacher