Erasing George Washington
FELZENBERG, ALVIN S.
Erasing George Washington by Alvin S. Felzenberg Change the name of the nation's capital and of the bridge that spans the Hudson? Remove the statues of our first president from Boston Common, Wall...
...Alvin S. Felzenberg, director of a House subcommittee, has lectured at Princeton University and written widely on the presidency...
...How were they treated while they served, and how did they affect the outcome of the war...
...Remove the statues of our first president from Boston Common, Wall Street, the state capitol in Richmond, and hundreds of town squares...
...They could become collectors' items...
...Nor will their school's name invite students to ponder the relevant questions: Would the South have entered the struggle for independence if forced to abandon slavery...
...Published accounts to date suggest the contrary...
...Furthermore, unlike many of his contemporaries, Washington did not tolerate the taking advantage of women slaves in his care, a policy that caused a visiting foreign officer to complain...
...Would slavery have been ended without independence...
...This fall, the Orleans Parish School Board in New Orleans voted unanimously to re-name George Washington Elementary School for Dr...
...He refused to break up families at the auction block...
...Nor would Washington sell a slave against his or her will...
...A respected scientist, he served his country well in World War II, first by devising ways to preserve blood plasma and then by protesting the army's policy of segregating plasma by the donor's race...
...He says that, "to African Americans, George Washington has about as much meaning as David Duke...
...Charles Richard Drew...
...Level the Washington Monument and the famous square that bears his name at the base of Fifth Avenue, for which a Henry James novel is named...
...The action conforms with a board policy that forbids naming schools in honor of slave owners...
...What did they think of Washington...
...Drew is a worthy role model for children...
...Northerners such as Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin, abolitionists from the start, could remain true to their consciences without incurring political, personal, or financial risks...
...Do not suspect for an instant that removal of Washington's name from an elementary school in New Orleans will prompt such discussion...
...Drew deserves to be honored...
...Marshall and McNair were heroes to all Americans...
...If so, they offered children attending schools named after them examples of valor, but valor in the service of preserving and extending slavery...
...What about Washington...
...These measures may not be far away if the latest venture in political correctness becomes a national fad...
...But those earlier name changes sparked less controversy...
...Washington could not...
...It is the twenty-second name change under the policy in the past five years...
...To be sure, Dr...
...Close Mount Vernon...
...One might argue that Generals Lee and Beauregard fought to dismember the union and continue the enslavement of what was then one eighth of the population...
...Like Thurgood Marshall and Ronald McNair, an astronaut killed on the shuttle Challenger, whose names also replaced those of slaveholders on New Orleans schools, Dr...
...Is the man who did more than any other to win American independence and create institutions that provided the basis for both emancipation and civil rights in the same league as ardent segregationist "states rights" politicians and former members of the Ku Klux Klan...
...Marshall and McNair replaced Confederate generals...
...For that matter, what drew 25,000 African Americans into the ranks of Washington's army...
...Meanwhile, hold on to your dollar bills...
...In his will he manumitted them upon the death of his wife and provided funds for the education of the young and the care of the elderly among them...
...Which was of greater concern to the one third of colonists who favored separation from England— independence or slavery...
...But the moral-absolutist position of the school board spares students and teachers the burden of considering the dilemmas Washington confronted...
...Kick him off the quarter and the dollar bill...
...In fact, Washington ranks with George Mason as one of the few founders who actually freed their slaves...
...The local activist who led the campaign to rename the schools thinks so...
...Given that some persons were defined by their race as property, he made those decisions at financial sacrifice...
...Could independence have been won without the South...
Vol. 3 • December 1997 • No. 14
