Editor:
After reflecting on the bridge disaster in Baltimore Harbor, I have two proposals:
First, the bridge’s eventual replacement should not memorialize F.S. Key; he was a slaveowner.
Second, we should use this moment to petition Congress to adopt “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” as our national anthem; it was written by an abolitionist and sung by U.S. troops as they fought and died to abolish slavery.
Gren Whitman
Margot Miller says
The Harriet Tubman Bridge would be a good choice.
Al DiCenso says
When in hell are we going to get over this never-ending guilt trip about slavery, slaveowners, school re-naming, etc?. Enough is enough already. I’m perfectly happy and proud to sing the National Anthem that we’ve had for over 200 years, thank you, and am honored to know that a magnificent bridge was named for him. We certainly have more urgent concerns to worry about and repair; primarily the ongoing train wreck that we have in DC. Let’s get done what NEEDS to be done and forget the pandering trivia.
Deirdre LaMotte says
….yes, what needs to be done is defeating fascist like Trump. Who know after nearly 80 years we’d be battling a Party that
would make any WW11 Axis Alliance nation proud? It is stomach churning, to say the least.
Vote Blue!
David Montgomery says
Friends and I were betting on how long it would take for someone to come up with this predictable woke response. First prize for signaling true virtue and shedding your white privilege.
Bettye Maki says
I would like to suggest America the Beautiful as our national anthem. It speaks of brotherhood and the beauty of our country as well as the heros. It is a gentler reminder of U.S. history.
“Oh beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife
Who more than self, their country loved
And mercy more than life”
Kurt Grumbach says
Are you out of your mind. This is part of the history of the USA. While you are at it why don’t you change the name of Washinton D.C. to Fairy Land or the City of Corruption.
Leave History alone and concentrate on more important or better yet get a real job.
Mickey Terrone says
Francis Scott Key sacrificed his fortune and risked his life to create this country, despite the legal presence of slavery. While it does no harm to remind ourselves of the vile nature of slavery, we ought to respect those slaveholders in the Revolutionary War period who risked everything to create this country.
We do need to draw the line however, against those who sacrificed everything to bring down the US government and Constitution to create a Confederate nation dedicated to the permanent institution of slavery as well as those who, even today, threaten fundamentally to change our democratic republic into an oligarchy under a political strongman. They use Confederate symbols to support their abased campaign.
That we continue to remember Confederate leaders and soldiers as heroes for choosing to support the Confederate enterprise in order to ensure the permanence of slavery is a distortion of history, including some of F.S. Key’s descendants. That many Marylanders participated in this revolution against our Constitution is especially heinous. Nearly 9,000 black Marylanders fought for the Union but were brutally denied their civil rights as citizens for nearly a century after Appomattox while our former Confederates and their descendants worked to deprive these true black American heroes of their rights to higher public education, to own land and run businesses through Jim Crow laws.
The ongoing effort to promote Confederate leaders and soldiers as heroes must be accompanied by these inconvenient and ugly facts about the Confederate cause, the people who perpetrated it on this country, the terrible destruction that followed and the ongoing self-deception of the Lost Cause mythology has had to sanctify that horrendous cause. That fond, collective memory of the Confederate cause still infects our country as an illusory plague.
Kevin A Boyer says
I was wondering how long it would take to identify a tragic event like this to become the subject of a woke idea.