D.C.

committee recommends
stripping the names of
Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Franklin, Francis Scott Key
and others from city
government buildings
Michael Brice-Saddler

One of the monuments that the committee found objectionable is the statue of Christopher
Columbus that stands in Columbus Circle in front of Union Station. (Evelyn Hockstein for
The Washington Post)
A committee reporting to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has
recommended renaming dozens of public schools, parks
and government buildings in the nation’s capital — including
those named for seven U.S. presidents — after studying the
historical namesakes’ connections to slavery and
oppression.

The report drew a torrent of criticism, especially for its

suggestion of adding plaques or other context to some of
the most famed federal locales in the city, including the
Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. After a
harsh rebuke from the White House, the Bowser
administration removed the recommendations dealing with
federal monuments on Tuesday evening.

A White House statement called Bowser (D) “the radically

liberal mayor of Washington, D.C.” and said she “ought to be
ashamed for even suggesting” revisions to the marble
monuments dedicated to presidents who were enslavers.
“President Donald J. Trump believes these places should be
preserved, not torn down; respected, not hated; and passed
on for generations to come.”

Amid equally outraged responses from Republicans in

Congress — some of which misstated the report’s
intentions by claiming the city wanted to tear down federal
monuments, rather than “contextualize” them — the 24-
page report posted on the D.C. government website shrank
to 23 pages. The page listing eight federal sites that the
committee identified as needing additional context was
missing (though it was still viewable on an earlier PDF as of
10:30 p.m.).

“Mayor Bowser has asked the [committee] to clarify and

refine their recommendations to focus on local DC,” mayoral
spokeswoman LaToya Foster said in an email, when asked
why the page had been removed. She said Bowser wanted
to avoid confusion over the working group’s proposal for the
federal monuments, which was “contextualizing, not
removing.”

The turmoil was the latest chapter in a national debate over

how to understand America’s history and pay homage to its
founders while also acknowledging their contributions to
racist practices and institutions. The committee termed 153
out of 1,330 individuals who have something named after
them in the capital city “persons of concern” but did not
recommend that all their names be removed. The report
calls for the renaming of playgrounds, parks and 21 public
schools.

Travis Timmerman, a Seton Hall University philosopher who

has researched monument removals, said addressing the
scores of places cited by the committee would put the
District far beyond most U.S. cities, which have mostly
focused on whether to remove public honorifics for
Confederate icons.

“They’re going after historical figures that by and large have

gotten a pass previously for their moral transgressions,”
Timmerman said, noting that the appropriateness of a
monument changes over time.

“Thomas Jefferson, for instance, was a vicious slaveholder,”

Timmerman said. “But most people think of him as the
primary author of the Declaration of Independence. … If
that’s what people think of Jefferson, then it’s not
necessarily harmful to have a school named after him. If
people become more aware of his moral shortcomings, and
that’s what they think of when they see Jefferson’s statue or
a school named after him, well, then it becomes harmful.”

D.C. Council members, who would have to vote for schools

and other buildings to be renamed, reacted to the report
with both praise and trepidation.

“I never really thought about Stoddert or Key Elementary as

an issue. They were just schools, and that’s their name,”
said Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), referring to schools on the
committee’s list that are named for early Secretary of the
Navy Benjamin Stoddert and for Francis Scott Key, the
writer of the national anthem. “African American women,
civil rights leaders — people ought to know about others.
This gives us an opportunity to honor them.”
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said he felt the report
had been rushed and did not provide enough historical
context. “I totally get why someone like John Tyler, even
though he’s a former president, is someone we don’t want a
school named after. But I don’t get why Benjamin Franklin is
someone we don’t want anything named after. I think we
need to see the detail,” he said.

The committee chairs — Bowser adviser Beverly Perry and

public library director Richard Reyes-Gavilan — said a
report fully detailing the committee’s rationale will be
published online in the future.

Bowser convened the committee after large-scale Black

Lives Matter protests began in the District following the
death of George Floyd in late May.

McDuffie suggests task force on offensive school and street

names

The committee said in its report that it considered whether

the honorees enslaved people or supported the institution
of slavery, whether they created laws and policies that
disadvantaged women and minorities, whether they
belonged to “any supremacist organization,” and whether
they discriminated against marginalized groups in a way
that would violate D.C. law.
Along with public housing complexes, parks and
playgrounds, the committee recommends renaming schools
including Eliot-Hine Middle School, named for former
Harvard University president and advocate of racist ideas
Charles William Eliot; and Brookland Middle School, named
for D.C. landowner and Andrew Jackson administration
official Jehiel Brooks.

Others whose names the committee would remove include

presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Andrew
Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Woodrow
Wilson and Tyler.

“With Alexander Graham Bell, there was talk about his

involvement with eugenics as something that was very, very
serious,” Reyes-Gavilan said in an interview, explaining why
the inventor was on the list.

Perry cited founding father Franklin’s history as an enslaver

and a racist line from his writing in 1751: “Why increase the
sons of Africa, by planting them in America, where we have
so fair an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawnys, of
increasing the lovely white and red?”

Council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5), who

proposed a renaming commission last year, said, “We can’t
simply accept the positive things, we’ve got to talk about
and accept all their contributions, including some that were
deeply offensive.”

“Let’s acknowledge Woodrow Wilson, the school I

graduated from, was helpful in establishing the United
Nations, but he also segregated the federal government and
showed ‘Birth of a Nation’ on the White House lawn,”
McDuffie said. Changes are needed, he continued, “so
young people of color can go to different parts of the city
and see images that look like them. We don’t have to simply
be resigned to a city that has a statue of White male military
heroes almost every couple of blocks.”

Zachary Bray, a University of Kentucky law professor who

has researched monument removal, said doing so was
much more common before the past half-century. “I am
very comfortable with and supportive of reconsidering
monuments. That’s in keeping with an old tradition in this
country that we ought to get back to,” he said.

The process of deciding which names to change would vary

based on the type of government property. To rename a
school, for example, the school system generally hosts a
“public engagement process” and then makes a
recommendation to the mayor, which the D.C. Council must
approve. The council can act independently to rename a
government building or a street.

Before the report was edited Tuesday night, it asked Bowser

to discuss with the federal government eight U.S.
monuments that the writers believed needed additional
historical context. These included the fountain honoring
Christopher Columbus outside Union Station and the
Washington Monument, named for enslaver and first
president George Washington.

Left unmentioned is the fact that the city of Washington,

District of Columbia, is itself named for both of those men.