His family defends his legacy
A public school system in Charlotte, North Carolina, recently announced plans to rename its academic center as some have accused the current name of promoting white supremacists.
But in its zeal to remove racists from its ranks, it has unfairly maligned a reluctant Confederate general who later spent his life advocating for inclusion of African-Americans.
“Politically, Rufus Barringer was a Whig who favored African-American suffrage,” historian Marvin Krieger wrote in a book on North Carolina history called the “Dictionary of North Carolina Biography.”
Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s school board voted to rename the Barringer Academic Center after advocates claimed it honored a white supremacist named Osmond Barringer. But a journalist at