 The school was established in 1959 and was originally named Nathan B. Forrest High School, after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.The fact that the school was named for Forrest was a point of significant controversy until the Duval County School Board changed the name in 2014.The school opened as New School 207 in 1959 in Jacksonville's Wesconnett neighborhood, at the site of present-day J. E. B. Stuart Middle School.