African American Caucus, Citing Racism, Pushes To Strip Francis Scott Key’s Name From Collapsed Baltimore Bridge

The Caucus of African American Leaders is petitioning for Baltimore’s Key Bridge to be renamed when it is rebuilt, citing racism connected to the collapsed bridge’s namesake, Francis Scott Key.Maryland’s governor, Wes Moore, is reportedly meeting with members of Congress this week to discuss funding and support for rebuilding the bridge after a cargo ship collided into it in the early hours of March 26. The coalition of African American groups says that naming the rebuilt bridge after the national anthem’s author would be honoring a slaveholder. Key, though he wrote the “Star Spangled Banner” lyrics celebrating the “land of the free,” owned slaves. The group quotes him as saying that Africans are “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experiences prove to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”The quote in question, however, has been erroneously attributed to Key, according to the Star Spangled Music Foundation. The push to rename the bridge was expected by Republicans, who after the collapse began speculating about what Democrats in Maryland would rename it. Key had a “conflicted relationship with slavery,” the National Park Service notes, since as an attorney, he defended enslaved people seeking their freedom and believed that “all men are free” by the law of nature. Yet — in addition to owning slaves himself — he defended slave owners as they sought to regain runaway slaves and he opposed abolition, the park service notes. The caucus is requesting that Mr. Moore instead name the bridge after Congressman Parren Mitchell, the first Maryland African American to be elected to the House of Representatives, the Baltimore Banner reports.When asked about the renaming proposal, Mr. Moore said he was focused on rebuilding the bridge, clearing the channel, and recovering the bridge worker’s bodies, the outlet notes. “I think any other conversations along those lines, there will be time for that but now’s not the time,” the governor said. The caucus is also asking for a bridge named after the deceased state senator, Frederick Malkus, to be renamed after the late civil rights leader, Gloria Richardson. The group says Malkus was resistant to desegregation efforts in the state in the 1960s and 1970s. “Some people would prefer that we not discuss the racial hatred that people we name bridges, buildings, streets, or statutes after,” the group wrote in a Facebook post, expressing disagreement with that sentiment. “These are public structures being paid for by all taxpayers in The State of Maryland.”

African American Caucus, Citing Racism, Pushes To Strip Francis Scott Key’s Name From Collapsed Baltimore Bridge

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