LETTER FROM SAN FRANCISCO
The San Francisco school board decided, Tuesday, January 26, to rename forty-four establishments that bore illustrious names but now controversial: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and even Abraham Lincoln.
One third of the city’s schools will change their name. Among the banished: the founding fathers of the Republic who owned slaves, the Spanish conquistadors or missionaries, oppressors and racists of all stripes. But also contemporary figures such as the venerable Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988. “We should not give names of personalities to schools, summed up Councilor Kevine Boggess. It is to make heroes into mere mortals. The way we decide on the names of our schools should reflect our true values. ”
The school board had decided to create a commission on the issue in the summer of 2017 after the parade of armed white supremacists in Charlottesville (Virginia) furious at the unbolting of the statue of Southern General Robert Lee.
The panel was made up of twelve people, educators, students, parents, but no historian: ” Especially not, explained its president. The historical facts are well known and established. The working group recommended removing any reference to personalities with: “Practiced slavery, oppressed women, hinders social progress, carried out actions that led to genocide”, or attempted ” in a significative way ” everyone’s right “To life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness” – a phrase from Thomas Jefferson, by the way, contained in the Declaration of Independence. By six votes to one, the board approved the purge.
Robert L. Stevenson, Thomas Edison
In addition to the first, third and fourth American presidents, the missionary Junipero Serra, canonized in 2015 by the Pope to the indignation of the indigenous populations, has been eliminated. Abraham Lincoln, hitherto universally revered as a monument of righteousness, was convicted of authorizing the execution of thirty-eight Native Americans sentenced to death by a military court for attacking settlers in Minnesota in 1862. Thomas Edison , to have a penchant for electrocution of animals, of which the pachyderm Topsy was victim, “A very popular circus elephant at the time”, according to the file of the educational committee.
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