Two Montgomery schools will now have new colors and mascots after dropping Confederate names.

Montgomery Public Schools announced new looks for JAG and Dr. Percy L. Julian high schools, two schools formerly named for Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

Officials voted last year to rename one high school for Percy Julian, a Montgomery-born African American chemist, and the other for a trio of white and Black civil rights figures: Judge Frank Johnson, Ralph Abernathy and Rev. Robert Graetz.

JAG High School will get a jaguar; Percy Julian High School will get a fiery phoenix, according to a hype video released Monday.

They will replace the Lee High “Generals” and the Jefferson Davis “Volunteers.”

Local efforts to change Montgomery school names began around the summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd. The Montgomery school board voted to eventually rename the schools in July 2020 and approved the choices last November.

“If we can unite under Confederate names, surely we can unite under individuals who have done something incredible for Montgomery,” board member Arica Watkins-Smith said during the vote last fall.

Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery opened in 1955 and would remain all-white for nine years. Jefferson Davis High School was named a decade later. Today, both schools are predominantly Black.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, at least 200 schools across the South were named for Confederate leaders as of 2021. The SPLC counted 24 in Alabama, though many are named for current counties and cities. At least three, however, are still named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Original petitions also included Montogmery’s Lanier High, which is named for Sidney Lanier, a Macon-born musician and writer who served in the Confederate army who became known as a “Poet of the Confederacy.” Earlier last year, the school board voted to merge the school with Carver High, removing the need for a new name.

For now, Percy L. Julian is still located in the same building as its former namesake Robert E. Lee High. Construction on a new building is set to start in the spring, as part of the district’s capital improvement plan.