It was distressing to read that the San Francisco school board has decided to rename some of its high schools, including those named for George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
While I would not want to defend Washington’s slave-holding nor Lincoln’s treatment of Native Americans, this renaming project is very misguided.
This is very different from taking down statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Monuments to Confederate heroes were installed during the beginning of the Jim Crow era and were part of the campaign of terror against newly emancipated African Americans. They also honored people whose role in history was to destroy the Union as well as perpetuate the evil institution of slavery.
Every person, including our great historical figures, is a mixture of good and bad. In looking at someone’s legacy, one should weigh the good against the bad, and take into consideration the times in which they lived.
When Thomas Jefferson and George Washington lived, it was common for wealthy white men to own slaves; if this were their defining characteristic, no one would remember them. But both men were exceptional.
Washington led the army that won the American Revolution; he was our first president, and he left office voluntarily after two terms, establishing a couple of very important precedents, that presidents’ powers are limited and that there should be a peaceful transfer of power from one leader to the next.
Jefferson, if he had done nothing else, deserves his place of honor for writing those immortal words: “We hold these truths to self-evident, that all men are created equal…” These words established (hopefully) for all time the ideal to which American society would aspire. Both men engaged in practices that were widely accepted in their time that we would consider repugnant; that does not erase their great contribution to our society.
One could say the same about Lincoln. Every president during the 19th century did things that harmed our Native American population. But Lincoln was an exceptional president: he held the Union together (though at a terrible cost), he freed the slaves, and his powers of oratory were unmatched by any other president in our history.
Of course we need to be aware of the dark side of American history. Of course we need to educate our young people about the misdeeds as well as triumphs of our great historical figures. But it is a mistake to try to erase the memory of those figures because they didn’t live up to current standards of behavior.
When people who don’t live in bubbles of political correctness like San Francisco (or our own happy valley) read about the renaming of George Washington High School, they think “what’s wrong with those people?; have they no appreciation for where they live?”
Then when they hear a demagogue like Donald Trump rant about the left wing extremists rewriting American history, they’re tempted to think that he makes sense and want to vote for him. That’s a small part of the reason our democracy is in such trouble today.
Joseph Blumenthal lives in Northampton.