While Southern Alamance County High School has taken some steps to address the alignment of the school with that of the Confederate Cause, there is still one glaring aspect that remains on campus to this day.

Central to the grounds of the school is a gathering space known as "senior circle" which is clearly shaped like the confederate flag, in which the "bars" are represented by the sidewalks and the "stars" were represented by the benches.

The 2015-2016 staff handbook states that the senior circle's shape is coincidental as it was created along the path that students had worn in the grass because it was not installed until after the 1970 Mascot change, from the Confederates to the Patriots but that is not the view of those who attend. 

As a 2003 graduate of SHS I distinctly remember the racially charged atmosphere of the school and remember well seeing a fight on one of those very benches in which a white student and black student bloodied one another. In 2020, regardless of the intention of those who installed it in the 70s, it is an unnecessary distraction in an educational environment for a person of color to be forced to walk through this daily reminder of the racial divide in America. 

In the rural south there are many statues, flags, monuments, and memorials that pay homage to a group of rebellious, greedy, evil, selfish people who thought that owning people of a different color for free labor was killing fellow Americans for. I want to believe that the rural south isn't holding on to the values perpetrated by the confederates but it will require the removal and denouncing of any and all symbols that remain, including the grounds of this high school.