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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.
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.
From 1959 and into the 1960s, Forrest High School was an all white
school. Beginning in 1971, 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 was 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. The students want the school
to be named after Eartha M. M. White, a Jacksonville native and
philanthropist. The School Board voted on November 3rd NOT to rename
the school. For more information on this see
school name
change
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 (who was modeled after
Jim Ivy, a black man) , the mascot of the
University of Mississippi.
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