The Walpole Rebel
Files, Links, and more related to the Walpole Rebel controversy


Articles I've Written:
The Rebel Issue Rolls On...
Rebel mascot and flag do not belong in Walpole
One overzealous Rebel fan makes us all look bad...
The picture that has everybody talking
A slight change in opinion on Rebel issue
Walpole Rebel: A History of its Confederate Connections

PDF Files:
NEASC Committee Report from 1988
Letters to the Walpole Times regarding the Rebel mascot and the use of the Confederate Flag (1993-1994)
School Committee Meeting Minutes with discussion of Rebel history in Walpole (1993)

Interview:
The following is an interview with Michael Amaral, a 1971 Walpole High graduate and ardent advocate of ending the use of the Rebel as a mascot in Walpole.

What sort of response have you been getting from your anti-Rebel activities over the years?
I have received basically these types of responses:
-Keep it up, its time people learned about our Civil War past...and the Rebel thing has no place here
-I agree with you, Mike, but don’t use my name. I have a business to run
-Who cares?
-The Rebel Mascot and waving Confederate flags is a racist thing to do

What was it like in high school?
My high school years (class of 1971) were quite memorable. I played sax in a group that regularly performed at Blackburn Hall and had a great time doing it. I had a lot of friends, and I regularly attended football and hockey games (some basketball). When I was a junior, my girlfriend was a cheerleader. I hated seeing the Confederate flag waving at pep rallies and sporting events, because just a few years earlier, I had watched television news stories of people harassing blacks in the south for wanting voting rights, or for wanting to use public facilities such as restaurants, shops, etc. Many of those television reports showed white southerners waving Confederate flags in protest. Some of those images included firemen firehosing peaceful African American protesters. It was shameful.

Did you speak to others about the Confederate flag and Rebel issue while at Walpole High?
I did talk about it with my friends, but it was always in relation to the civil rights issue, not the local Civil War issue. Unfortunately, local Civil War history was never taught to me or anyone else currently living in Walpole. Also, I was very actively involved in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era, and that really took up most of my energy. A fellow student and I “took over” a history class at Walpole High to discuss the Vietnam issue once. We were very concerned about being drafted into a war in which at that time had taken the lives of nearly 50,000 young Americans. The most I did as a “rebel activist” in 1969 or 1970 was to paint over a huge Confederate Flag at Turco field with black paint before a key football game.  Four of my fellow classmates were with me that night and helped. Two of them still live here in Walpole. (It was completely re-painted by gametime by ardent Rebels fans!).

How did you get to become a member of the Historical Commission?
I had heard that a commissioner was retiring from the Commission (long-time defacto “official historian of Walpole” Mrs. Betty Cottrell), and I wrote a letter to the Board of Selectmen asking them to consider me as a commissioner. I was voted in unanimously by the board. I don’t have the exact date of that appointment, but it was around the beginning of 2007.

When did you start your blog?
I started the blog www.walpolemassachusetts.blogspot.com in late December 2006. I was concerned that even though I had written numerous articles on the inappropriateness of the Rebel mascot in the Walpole Times, the “sands of time” would wash away those stories in the future. Now they are “perpetuated” so-to-speak, and continue to educate people in Walpole, and around the United States.

What was the initial response from people?
Initial responses have been similar to the responses mentioned above. One blogger in South Carolina that is opposed to the Confederate flag (yes, white southerners are against it too), made a link to my blog. Also a blogger in Texas, who also saw his school change the mascot from the Rebels to the Mavericks.

You recently installed statistical tracking software on your blog.  What have you learned about how many people visit your website, and what parts of the country they are in?
I have installed “statcounter” software, the free version. This limits my tracking only to the last 500 hits. It keeps filling a buffer of 500 recordings, so it is continuous...I just can’t track over 500 hits at any one time. I have learned enough from that buffer that the blog gets an average of 100 hits per day during the week, a bit slower on weekends. Most of the hits are from persons researching Andersonville Prison, and they come from all over the United States and other countries too. The IP addresses link to universities and public school systems, so I can assume it is students who mostly read my blog. My story about Walpole’s Private Lowell E. Hartshorn who died at about 19 years old at the infamous Rebel Prison at Andersonville, seems to be the focal point. Others are researching the town of Walpole. I do get the actual search engine data, in otherwords, if someone types in “Walpole Rebels” on google, they are most likely apt to be directed to my blog. Some persons are researching the Ku Klux Klan, or other Confederacy related topics. The hits primarily are from the Eastern Massachusetts area, and the states of Georgia, North Carolina and California. The immediate area around Atlanta seems to be very interested in my blog. Hits also come from all over the world. I am at a total loss as to why some guy in Ulan Bator, Mongolia keeps hitting my blog.....a former classmate perhaps?

Tell us about your experiences visiting the South.  Who did you meet, where did you go, what did you learn, what was the purpose of your visit (or visits)?
I have had several types of visits down south. First, as a plain old tourist, flying down to Florida in the winter, and for business, where I have traveled to Norfolk, Virginia and Long Beach, Mississippi. I did take several solo motorcycle tours through the south, and they were excellent. Both trips, one for 7 days, and the other for 11 days, were meant as vacations and also as Civil War research trips. I mention both trips on my blog. The hospitality down south was excellent. I spent several very nice days in New Berne, North Carolina, where Walpole boys, members of the Massachusetts 23rd regiment, liberated the slave populations of Roanoke Island and the small city of New Berne. I also drove down to Andersonville Prison, Georgia to visit the National Cemetery there were 13,000 Union soldiers are buried, victims of abuse by the Rebel authorities. Of those men, 750 were from Massachusetts, including Walpole’s Private Hartshorn.

Do you have any final comments that you would like to make?
Well, I’d like to point out something: One of the main reasons no one wants to take on such a subject is that they may come across looking like they are picking on young people. I have learned that many folks simply hate the rebel mascot, but they dare not risk looking foolish. As I mention on my blog, several other schools have eliminated the Rebel Mascot for the same reasons. In some cases it was the students who pushed the idea, in others, it was the educators. I do strongly feel that educators need to take a strong stand on this issue and do something about it. There doesn’t seem to be any action from educators on this issue, so I felt I had to take it on myself. After all, I truly am defending the history of the Town of Walpole. The Rebel Mascot puts some folks in a situation where they would prefer to deny our own history from 1861-1865 in order to please their own “athletics history”.

In the 1990’s, the subject was debated by the school committee, and they came up with a compromise: To eliminate the flag officially from the uniforms, etc., but to keep the name “Rebels”. They unfortunately allowed the “Confederacy” theme to continue. I felt then that it was only a matter of time before students would keep up waving confederate flags. After being alerted to Facebook postings on the Walpole Rebel Flag issue, I have found that indeed there is a movement, apparently led by certain athletes, to bring back the Confederate flag to Walpole High.  Searching the term “Walpole Rebels” on Facebook brings up several other similar sites. This exposes these groups to outsiders, some of whom imply racial issues regarding the mascot. Some of their rhetoric, such as one post trashing President Lincoln, leads me to believe that in this day and age of the internet, our youth may indeed be influenced by “neo-confederate” groups such as the League of the South and its associated blog, The Rebellion.  I think also that since Walpole High has numerous African-American and other students of color, it is time to start off with something new. There was only one black student at the high school during my class years.  Now there are more, including athletes. I don’t want a student, especially a student of color,  to have to take such an issue on, because I do understand that no one wants to live their High School years as a pariah. This is, after all, an adult decision. I am not against the Civil War theme: Just pick the right side! The example of Walpole teenager Private Lowell E. Hartshorn is a good one. After suffering many months of mistreatment at the infamous Rebel prison at Andersonville, and after continuous offers to join the Rebel Cause and increase his rations, shelter and to save his life, he chose “Death Before Dishonor”, along with his 13,000 other Union comrades, nearly 750 from the great state of Massachusetts, our home. The colors are great on the uniforms, the winning tradition is excellent....we just need to think of something else for a mascot. The Union victory over the Lost Cause of the Confederacy is something to indeed be proud of. Millions of Americans agree with me: Its time for a change. I happen to like “Union Football”.