Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln or the Spanish missionary Junipero Serra are no longer in the odor of sanctity in San Francisco: the city's school council has decided to rename forty-four establishments bearing the names of personalities according to him associated with racism, slavery or colonization.
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The move, which has sparked great controversy locally, dates back to the creation of a commission to revise the names of public schools in May 2018, before statues of Christopher Columbus and Confederate monuments were brought down by protesters. in the wake of rallies denouncing the murder of African-American George Floyd.
The commission in question produced a list of forty-four establishments to be renamed.
Among them are schools named after Presidents Washington and Jefferson, both of whom owned slaves, as does Francis Scott Key, the author of the US national anthem.
Abraham Lincoln referred
More surprisingly, Abraham Lincoln, yet a symbol of the abolition of slavery in the country, is also targeted because he is accused by some of having played a role in the massacre of Amerindian tribes.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, 87, is on the list adopted by six votes to one: the committee accuses her of having had a Confederate flag handed over which was part of about twenty other banners traditionally floating in front of the hotel city and which had been vandalized when she was mayor of San Francisco in 1986. The southern flag has now become a symbol of racial discrimination and those who advocate the supremacy of the
"white race"
.
Read also: The very political history of Confederate statues in the United States
The decision to rename these schools has sparked much criticism, including the current mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, who is black.
Last October, London Breed deemed it “insulting” for parents of children deprived of schools because of the pandemic that school authorities devote their energy to changing the names of schools rather than reopening them.