JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A group of college students made their voices heard to the Duval County School Board about their desire to give a Westside high school a new name.

The students said they want to change the name of Nathan B. Forrest High School, which is currently named after former Confederate general in the Civil War and first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The students claimed Forrest's ties to the Ku Klux Klan, which Forrest later broke off, is the reason the high school should be given a different name.

"It absolutely absolutely racist. There's nothing acceptable, tolerable or understandable about racism," said student Jardyn Lake.

"What characteristics are we asking to impart about Nathan Bedford Forrest? He has no relationship to Jacksonville. None," student Kurt Boulware said.

Florida Community College Jacksonville sociology teacher Steven Stoll is the man who spurred the group into action. His students started researching Forrest.

"I suggested and said, 'There's a school in this town named after this racist Forrest. Do you want to do something about it?' And four of my students said they would research who he was and pick someone who they thought we should name a school after," Stoll said.

Historians told Channel 4 Forrest's background is not all about the Klan.

"He was a very effective military leader and he had very little military training, and that tends to be what people who celebrate Forrest focus on -- the fact that he was such an effective military leader, less so the goals that effort was put toward, which were to establish a slave republic," said history professor Aaron Sheehan-Dean. "The whole purpose of the Klan was designed to protect the old order the civil war had overturned ... so its problematic either way you look at it."

Many those who spoke at the school board meeting believe Forrest High School desperately needs a new name.

"We don't name schools after Hitler. We don't name schools after Jeffrey Dahmer. So, why is this acceptable?" Lake said.

"We selected Eartha White as a person who should be honored in this community, but if they want to change it to 103rd Street school, that would be better than Nathan Forrest," Stoll said.

The School Board took no action on the proposal after Tuesday night's meeting, but told the group that in order to change the name of school, certain guidelines must be followed.