2024 Second Prize Winner
Our Town’s Legacy
I have lived in Fort Bragg, California my entire life and I cannot remember a town issue as contentious and polarizing as whether or not the name of Fort Bragg should be changed. Despite many other cities taking down monuments or changing their name due to problematic circumstances, we have not followed in their footsteps. In fact, Fort Bragg High School and Fort Bragg Middle School are the only schools in California named after a Confederate. The place I call home is littered with signs staked into the ground blaring “FORT BRAGG FOREVER” in bright letters. I see these signs in front of my neighbors, friends, and peers' homes, a constant reminder of the cloud of ignorance that hangs over my town. I believe the name of my high school should be changed for three reasons. One, schools named after confederates have proven to have negative effects on students. Secondly, Braxton Bragg and the reservation that was in Fort Bragg should not be honored. Finally, there are a lack of compelling arguments in favor of keeping the name.
To begin, there is immense evidence that schools with racist names negatively impact students. For example, NBC News quoted Lauren Duncan of Smith College saying, ”Studies show that images and symbols have a direct impact on the self-esteem of students and their motivation to succeed. Girls who have images of female scientists in the lab, even in the form of a poster, are more likely to succeed at science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, studies. The same holds true for other underrepresented groups.”
Students at Fort Bragg High School deserve to have positive and affirming symbolism. I imagine that the community of Fort Bragg wants all students to succeed, and we can help make this happen by eliminating our racist school name. The Education Trust furthered this idea by writing, “When a school presents racist imagery and refuses to change for their students, they are sending a message that students are not the priority. School climate affects self-esteem, motivation, and educational outcomes, so complaints about racist school names and mascots should be met with thoughtful discourse and meaningful changes. And they should actively seek input from the students and the community.”
All students at Fort Bragg High School should feel like their voices are heard, and the community and FBUSD Board’s refusal to seriously consider a name change is not creating an equitable and safe space for students. Furthermore, the history behind the reservation in Fort Bragg and Braxton Bragg himself is deeply unsavory, and an educational institution should not carry that legacy. Fort Bragg High School received its name upon its founding in 1907, meaning the school has been named after a confederate for 116 years. The town of Fort Bragg was established in 1857, and the reservation in Fort Bragg was created to control and contain the Pomo indigenous peoples as well as watch over the settlement of the area. First Lieutenant Horatio G. Gibson supervised the fort, and named the town Fort Bragg after his commanding officer Braxton Bragg.
There were numerous atrocities that occurred on the Fort Bragg reservation, including but not limited to rape, forced labor, starvation, and abduction. This is a sobering quote from a paper written in 1964 by Garret Gary of Sacramento State University about life on the Mendocino reservation for Native Americans:
“This tale of horror reached a climax in the winter of 1858-59 at Cape Mendocino Reservation. A group of Indians brought down from the Trinity River country were grumbling about lack of food and threatening to return to their homeland. This unruly sentiment reached the ears of a certain group of white settlers who banded together and crept onto the reservation in the dead of night. They went at the sleeping Indians with guns, knives and hatchets. Morning light revealed the lacerated and bloody bodies of sixty men, women and children.”
In addition to frequent bloody massacres, the horror continued with Native American children being sold into slavery. Garret Gary writes,
“Anthropologist Sherburne Cook, in what is probably a conservative estimate, calculated that between three and four thousand Indian children were kidnapped and sold into slavery in the period from 1852 to 1867.”
Fort Bragg High School, is this type of atrocity what we want associated with our name?
Braxton Bragg himself fought in the Second Seminole War and the Mexican American War. Many people ignore the atrocities committed on the reservation and argue that we should not change the name of Fort Bragg because it was named before Bragg joined the Confederacy in 1861. Even if that was a compelling argument, he was still a prolific slave owner. He owned over 100 slaves and a sugar plantation in Louisiana. Bragg was initially a successful commander in the Civil War and was even promoted to General. To add insult to injury, he served as a military advisor to the president of the confederacy himself: Jefferson Finis Davis.
To conclude, there are little to no convincing arguments against changing the name of the Fort Bragg High School. One I often hear is that if the name of town and the high school are changed, history will be forgotten. However, there has been little discussion in school about the history of our town. The only time we discussed Braxton Bragg was in my AP United States History class. We spent a day talking about him and wrote a small essay about whether or not we should change the name of the town. We never touched on the crimes committed against Native Americans that day. In fact, I was not aware of the way Native Americans were treated at the reservation until I researched for this essay. We do have a plaque in front of the Guest House that explains who Fort Bragg is named after, but it says nothing about Braxton Bragg being a Confederate or the treatment of natives. Proponents for keeping the name of Fort Bragg should work on creating a curriculum so students can at least learn about the namesake of their school instead of ensuring the history is either ignored or apathetically accepted. Another common argument is if Fort Bragg High School bears a new name, personal history will be replaced. As someone who will be graduating from Fort Bragg High School in June, I feel I will always be able to point to my high school and the memories I made there no matter what the name is. It is not the name, but rather the place. The place will not change, only what it is called. A third argument is that name changes cost schools, cities, and towns too much money. However, the organization Change Our Name Fort Bragg is working with the state to cover the expenses.
The final argument I will dispel and end this essay on is the most complex one: changing the name of schools will not change the past. This is, of course, true. However, as a society we should all be working to be actively anti-racist and to combat systemic racism. I hope I can be a part of a future with communities that work to understand and hear each other with no schools named for notorious racists of the past.
Works Cited
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIAN IN MENDOCINO COUNTY 1856 - 1860 Gary E. ~rrett B.A.> (Sacramento S~e College), 1962 THESIS, https://dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/ 10211.9/2247/1969GarrettGary.pdf?sequence=1. Accessed 9 March 2024.
Berry, Danielle. “How Changing Racist Names of School Buildings and Mascots Affects School Climate.” The Education Trust, 11 August 2021, https://edtrust.org/the-equity-line/how-changing-racist-names-of-school- buildings-and-mascots-affects-school-climate/. Accessed 10 March 2024.
Chatelain, Neil P. “Emerging Civil War.” Emerging Civil War, 15 September 2023, https://emergingcivilwar.com/2023/09/15/civil-war- encounters-touring-the-west-part-four-fort-bragg-california/. Accessed 10 March 2024.
Colebourne, Stephen. “FAQs — Change Our Name - Fort Bragg.” Change Our Name - Fort Bragg, https:// www.changeournamefortbragg.com/faqs. Accessed 10 March 2024. Farrar, Lauren. “When Should A School's Name Get Canceled?” KQED, 1 September 2021, https://www.kqed.org/education/535294/when- should-a-schools-name-get-canceled. Accessed 10 March 2024.
Lamarre, Gisele. “Debate over renaming schools remains impassioned almost a year after BLM protests shook the nation.” NBC News, 14 March 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/debate-over- renaming-schools-remains-impassioned-almost-year-after-george- n1259849. Accessed 10 March 2024.
McInerny, Claire. “Here Are Arguments For And Against Changing Confederate Names Of Austin Schools.” KUT.org, 26 February 2018, https://www.kut.org/education/2018-02-26/here-are-arguments-for-and- against-changing-confederate-names-of-austin-schools. Accessed 10 March 2024.