Allen Central High School - Mascot and Flag Scandals

Mascot and Flag Scandals

For the past 34 years, the school has displayed symbols of the Confederate States of America. A Confederate flag was displayed in the school gymnasium as recently as January 2007, and the school mascot is a Confederate soldier who, as of late 2006, appeared on a sign at the entrance to the school. A nearby courtyard has blue brick forming the Cross of St. Andrew, and a mural in the lobby shows a rebel soldier carrying the flag on horseback. Other images of rebel soldiers and Confederate flags cover the same walls. The images have stoked controversy, since many consider them to be racist symbols, both in Floyd County, in Kentucky, and elsewhere, although there is also support in the county for retaining the symbols.

In December 2006, the David School, a private school in the same sports league as Allen Central, decided not to play a basketball game at the school because the it considered the Confederate symbols a form of taunting, which is forbidden by the athletic league.

The Justice Resource Center in Louisville, Kentucky, a civil rights group, criticized the school's prominent displays of the Confederate flag at the school and at public events, and the head of the organization, the Rev. Louis Coleman, suggested that black members of nearby school sports teams should have the option of not participating in events where Confederate symbols are displayed. Coleman told the Associated Press that the flag creates "a very tense and negative atmosphere" for black student athletes.

Allen Central's former principal, Sis Hall, and many students at the school have defended the Confederate emblems, calling them symbols of strength, independence and pride. The school's use of the emblems "has nothing to do with racism", Hall told an Associated Press reporter. "It's a part of us."

Allen Central adopted the school flag and mascot in 1972, when four other schools were consolidated to form the high school. Students formed a committee and chose the mascot. The four previous schools and their mascots were the Maytown Wildcats, the Garrett Black Devils, the Wayland Wasps and the Martin Purple Flash.