Confederate Mascot Fight Shifts to Quartz Hill Elementary School : Education: After a successful protest at the high school, NAACP takes effort to a lower level. Symbols are called racist.

After winning the fight to eliminate Confederate symbols from Quartz Hill High School--which had a Confederate soldier and flag on its school logo--local African American activists have moved on to a smaller battlefield: Quartz Hill Elementary School.

The kindergarten through fifth-grade school adopted its mascot--a soldier carrying a sword and a Confederate flag--more than a dozen years ago to align itself with the nearby high school, officials said. A sign in front of the elementary school depicts the mascot.

Antelope Valley Union High School board members ordered changes in the similar, high school mascot last month after NAACP representatives and other residents came to a board meeting to denounce the Confederate imagery as an offensive reminder of slavery.

The protest against the symbols at Quartz Hill Elementary, which calls itself the “Home of the Junior Rebels,” has been more low-key--two letters objecting to the mascot were received by the Westside Union School District board, which governs the elementary school.

“I really wouldn’t classify it as a community outcry,” said District Supt. George (Bud) Reams. “It’s a grievance by two community members who just happen to be black.”

The board took no action at its meeting last week except to instruct the school’s principal to form a committee to study the issue.

Lynda Thompson Taylor, president of the Antelope Valley Branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said the school board should have acted more decisively.

“I think what they’re trying to do is pass the ball on this,” she said. “I think they should take a stand and say this is not something that should be a symbol of an elementary school or a high school.

“How could they want their children to stand under this symbol and be proud?”

District officials said they are moving cautiously, in part because they’ve received only the two letters--one written by a man who does not live in Quartz Hill, the other by a local parent who does not have a child at Quartz Hill Elementary. Neither of the letter writers attended last week’s board meeting.

School district officials also said that changing or replacing the elementary school’s mascot, featured on the sign, an announcement board and an auditorium wall painting, could cost more than $1,000.

“The decision is not a simplistic decision,” said Christine LeBeau, president of the school board. “If you do decide to no longer use this logo, then there are other decisions that come with it. The community has to be involved in making those changes.”

One of the letter writers, William C. Taylor (no relation to Lynda Taylor), said he does not object to the committee approach, if that committee has representatives of racial minorities. “I think they should get a committee and (appoint) a mix of people in that community that reflects the population,” Taylor said. “Since it’s an African American issue, they should make sure African Americans are on the committee.”

Taylor, a Lancaster resident who has served on the Lancaster School District and Antelope Valley Union High School district boards, said a Quartz Hill resident asked him to submit a letter on the issue, believing it would carry more weight.

In his letter, Taylor said display of the Confederate flag is “the embodiment of slavery” and “symbolic of the dehumanization” of African Americans.

“Our children should not be encouraged to perpetuate a symbol that is racist, humiliating and offensive to African Americans,” Taylor wrote.

About 670 children attend Quartz Hill Elementary School. Reams estimated that 8% to 10% are African American.

The school was not required to choose a mascot, but like several other Westside campuses, it opted to do so, Reams said. Other Westside school mascots include a falcon, bobcat, dragon, coyote and an X-15 jet.

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During the high school district debate, the Rebel’s defenders denied that racism played a role in its selection as a mascot. They said the name merely reflected the feisty spirit of a rural community that had to fight hard to get a high school built in its town.

Gwen Farrell, a 12-year member of the Westside board, said that when the “junior” version was adopted by the elementary school in the early 1980s, community leaders did not realize the symbols would offend some residents. “I know that when this was done, there was no intent to discriminate against anybody,” Farrell said. “I think it was a purely innocent oversight.”

In 1991, the PTA paid for the sign featuring the name of the elementary school, the phrase “Home of the Junior Rebels” and an etched drawing of the mascot carrying the Confederate flag.