Well, that didn’t take long.
African American groups call for ditching ‘racist’ Francis Scott Key, naming new bridge after late congressman
A coalition of African American groups in Maryland is pushing for Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge to be renamed once reconstructed over what they say is racism connected to Key’s legacy.
The Caucus of African American Leaders of Anne Arundel County recently voted unanimously to call for changing the names of two bridges in Maryland, including the Key Bridge, and will lobby Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and the state’s Democrat-controlled General Assembly on the proposal, the Baltimore Banner first reported Tuesday. The bridge collapsed in late March when a cargo ship struck a support beam.
The coalition includes groups such as an NAACP chapter and the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, which wants the replacement bridge to be renamed in honor of the late Rep. Parren Mitchell, the first African American elected to the U.S. House from the state of Maryland. Mitchell was also a civil rights pioneer as the first Black graduate student admitted to the University of Maryland.
We haven’t even found all the bodies yet, but don’t let that stand in the way of your grievance activism.
A spokesperson for the Caucus of African American Leaders told Fox News Digital they believe “public structures and buildings that taxpayers pay for shouldn’t be named in honor of people who owned slaves.”
It may come as no surprise that I, as a taxpayer, believe that naming “public structures and buildings that taxpayers pay for” shouldn’t be held hostage by one group that has a chip on its shoulder.
As a lawyer, Francis Scott Key helped black Marylanders sue for freedom prior to emancipation. Yet the grievance mongers smear Key with his alleged later views on slavery.
They also quote Key as having said Black Americans are “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community,” which has received pushback as an “erroneous” quote from the Star Spangled Banner Foundation.
“A racist quote attributed to Francis Scott Key, the author of the lyrics to ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ has been circulating in news articles and blog posts,” the foundation wrote in 2020. “Incorrectly credited to Key as a first-person expression of his attitudes about race in the United States, the quote asserts that free Blacks are “a distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”
“The quote is taken from page 40 of Jefferson Morley’s generally insightful 2012 book Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835),” the foundation continued. “Morley, in turn, cites as his sole source a quote in the 1937 biography Francis Scott Key: Life and Times by Edward S. Delaplaine. This biography is the source of confusion as to the quote’s speaker.”
Be that as it may, this push to rename the bridge after an obscure black Marylander really comes as no surprise, especially after the destruction of nationally-important statues over the last few years, including of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Francis Scott Key is a national figure who contributed to our national identity by authoring the national anthem. But with professional and college sports teams either kneeling or not showing up for the playing of the national anthem, cancelling the anthem’s author is just the next step in smothering our historic national identity.
I can only assume that the black Americans behind this and other efforts to replace recognition of white Americans (like General Robert E. Lee, and presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) with recognition of black Americans think that this somehow fixes past injustices.
It doesn’t, because it can’t.
Whatever isolation black Americans feel, removing and replacing white national historic figures with obscure black figures only furthers that isolation. I know nothing of “Rep. Parren Mitchell, the first African American elected to the U.S. House from the state of Maryland” and I’d wager that very few blacks know who he is, either. Instead of us all, blacks and whites, being bound by the national anthem and its author—who, by the way, was born in Frederick County, Maryland, and lived most of his life there—blacks in Maryland will reject that commonality and replace it with a black man only a few of them know.
Their prerogative. Maryland will reject one of their sons, known for writing our national anthem, for another son, a “first black,” i.e. based solely on race.
Stupid.
Hey Dave, when will Lift every voice and sing” take over ? So if they find out that Rep. Parren Mitchell was not what he said he was, what happens next?
That is a good question, Jim. It’s already part of some sports, so it’s a small step from where it sits to replacing the Star Spangled Banner. Of course, that will come with monstrous pushback.