BY ED FELIEN
There has been a wide ranging discussion about changing the name of Lake Calhoun, and the park board recently asked staff to report on how that could happen. The lake was named by U.S. Army surveyors in the early part of the 19th century for John C. Calhoun, before Minnesota was a state and before Minneapolis was a city. Calhoun was the principal architect of States’ Rights and the major apologist for slavery. His arguments laid the basis for secession and the Civil War.
But he died 165 years ago, and it’s hard to believe anyone walking around Lake Calhoun today remembers his deeds or reveres his name. But changing the name of Lake Calhoun would be a good thing because it would provide us with a teachable moment to educate young people about the history of slavery and racism.
Color of Change is initiating a national petition to change the name of the street in front of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston: “As the Confederate flag comes down a hundred miles from Charleston, there are still painful symbols of the white supremacist culture that the killer embraced just a few feet away from the Church. The historic Emanuel AME is located on Calhoun Street, named for the staunch advocate of slavery John C. Calhoun. Calhoun was the champion of the political and philosophical argument behind secession that bred states’ rights. As a U.S. Vice President then senator, he didn’t just espouse the racist ideology of institutionalizing the dehumanization of Black lives. He was an architect of it. His name has no place on the street signs surrounding Emanuel AME. Demand that the Charleston City Council change the name of Calhoun Street to Emanuel 9 Way to memorialize the victims of the June 17th attack. This is about more than just a street name. Monuments and memorials for supporters of slavery have become so commonplace in our country that the racial violence they represent is normalized. The ‘heritage’ invoked by people who carry the Confederate flag is the same heritage that led Dylann Roof to commit racial violence against innocent churchgoers in prayer. It is a heritage we can trace back to racist figures like Calhoun.”
It could be a teachable moment to have a national discussion of the ideas of John C Calhoun. The more conscious we all are of the impact of history, the better prepared we are to change it.
We should also consider changing the name of Ramsey Fine Arts school in Minneapolis. Alexander Ramsey called for the extermination of the Sioux Indians in 1862. Laura Ingalls Wilder School in South Minneapolis was changed to Benjamin Banneker School when someone finally got around to reading ”Little House on the Prairie” and discovered Wilder’s racist stereotyping of Native Americans.
Yes, it’s always a good idea to look carefully at the words we use and understand their meaning.
But if we’re going to do that, then shouldn’t we also look at some of our sacred cows to see how they support racism?
U.S. Bank just agreed to pay $200 million in fines for racist lending practices that were part of the reason for the destruction of the black community in North Minneapolis. Now they’ve agreed to pay another $200 million to name the Viking stadium (built with more than a billion dollars of our taxes). Isn’t that worse than a street or a lake named after John C. Calhoun?
There has still not been a public inquiry into the death of Terrance Franklin, an unarmed black man killed by the Tactical Squad of the Minneapolis Police Department in the basement of a home in South Minneapolis. Why has there been no public outcry by our elected officials?
The Mall of America continues to prosecute the leaders of last fall’s Black Lives Matter demonstration. How can anyone think of shopping at the Mall while they are still trying to intimidate people involved in the struggle against racism?
Yes, let’s change the name of Lake Calhoun, but let’s not stop there. There are a lot of things in our hometown that need to change.
