News 14's Stephanie Stilwell has more as police remove four nooses from around Andrews High School.
HIGH POINT -- Scholars call it a symbol that reflects a shameful period in our nation's history. Friday, High Point police removed four nooses hung from different spots around Andrews High School.
“To get to a situation in 2007 where people can feel like this as a prank is acceptable, that tells us a lot about how much progress we've made and how much progress we've got to continue to work on,” Claude Barnes, a political science professor at North Carolina A&T said.
That situation is four nooses hung from the flag pole and other locations at the High Point schoo.. “And so the symbol here of a noose is very, very disturbing whether it was a joke or prank or whatever; whether this was perpetrated by whites, blacks, or whoever, it's not funny,” Barnes said, “because it takes us back to a tragic and very shameful period is our nation’s history.”
Guilford county school board officials agree. “Anytime you have something like that you take it very seriously and I think that the school board and the police are taking this as a very serious kind of thing,” Walter Childs, Guilford County School Board member said.
The incident happened at Andrews High School in High Point.
Childs says if the offender is indeed a student, school officials would deliver their punishment, while the police would look at criminal charges. And depending on what motivated the incident, federal charges could also be included.
“We should use it as a time to educate, to talk about it, to have dialogue about what this means and this is good but at the same time we should also render our just punishments,” Barnes said.
Agents at the F.B.I. said they are aware of the incident and have not initiated an investigation, but are watching it closely.
“If you look at the history of the civil rights movements, it tends to ebb and flow,” Barnes said, “And sometimes we get complacent so on a positive side it may shake some of us out of our complacency and get us more involved in continuing to see a need to press for civil rights and human rights.”