After a year-long debate, the Tulsa School Board votes to change the name of the 100-year-old Robert E. Lee Elementary School.
Some in the community and on the school board felt that the Lee name was divisive and racially offensive because of the Confederate General’s ties to the Civil War and slavery.
The board accepted a committee’s recommendation to rename the school Council Oak. This name honors a nearby tree that stands near 18th and Cheyenne, where the Creek Nation leadership first met upon that tribe's relocation to Oklahoma in the Trail of Tears.
Some in the audience at last night’s meeting pointed out that the Creek Nation was a slave-holding tribe.
The name change is effective immediately.