Student protests to rename high school named for Confederate general

Trude Lamb, a high school sophomore from Tyler, Texas is among countless students nationwide who are fighting to rename schools that honor Confederate leaders.

Video transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

TRUDE LAMB: I am one of your true first-generation African-American student at Robert E Lee. I am from Ghana, Africa. I have worked the very field and fetch water for my family from the very places my people were kidnapped. My name is Trude Lamb. I live in Tyler, Texas, and I go to Robert E. Lee High School.

Here in the United States, he owned slaves and didn't believe people like me weren't 100% human. He continues to bring our city down. As one of your Black students, I am respectfully asking you to take up the Robert E. Lee name change issue.

LAURA OWENS: I overheard Trude and some of her runner friends talking about the name. Trude asked me, hey, I need those email addresses of the school board members. That's when I saw her letter, and I was so moved by it and asked for permission to share it. And when I shared it, that's when it took off.

TRUDE LAMB: I love and enjoy the sports I play at Robert E. Lee. I cannot be playing sports supporting and going to a school that was named after a person who was against my people.

- Go, Trude!

- Good job, Trude!

TRUDE LAMB: Please vote to change the name after someone who we can all be proud of. This town was built on the backs of my enslaved brothers and sisters. Do it in their memory and honor the future of their ancestors that are at Robert E. Lee.

- Tear them down! Tear them down!

CORY BOOKER: The continued presence of these statues in the halls is an affront to African-Americans and the ideals of our nation.

TRUDE LAMB: I consider myself an activist now. It made me feel better about myself, made me so proud. Before George Floyd, I was really shy and was crying. I didn't like going to school. I didn't like being around people. And when all this stuff started happening, that's when I started protesting, had a lot of people know me say they were proud of me, and just stand with me, and that I was doing the right thing.

LAURA OWENS: Trude will work an entire nine-hour shift, and when I pick her up at 8 o'clock at night from the grocery store-- she's been on her feet all day-- and she says, where's the protest tonight? Are we going? I said, I've already got the signs in the back of the car and the water cooler packed. Let's go.

The role of students in activism right now gives me the greatest hope, I think, that I've had over my 42 years. Right now this Black Lives Matter movement and the civil rights movement that is going on now is-- I mean, I get chills thinking about it.

TRUDE LAMB: I have boys from my school say the N word. I wasn't only toward me but like was sort of my friends. Going to school with those kids made me feel scared. It made me think they learned that kind of stuff from their parents, that their parents don't teach them the right thing.

LAURA OWENS: This is not something new to her or our family. Being a trans-racial family, also being a white mom of Black children, I have a responsibility to educate and protect them about the festering wound of racism-- systemic racism that we have in our country. If they don't change the name of the school, we will continue fighting just as hard as we have all been fighting. This will not go away.

We're hoping Tyler is going to do the right thing, and these other communities can look at us and say look at what Tyler did. Look at what Trude did with just a little letter. I can do it too. And let us be the first to heal this wound. We'd love to be an example for the rest of the United States.