Add the "S" Already! The Fierce Urgency of Renaming Douglas Park for Frederick Douglass

The Chicago Tribune ^ | June 9, 2020 | Eric Zorn

[PBRCat]

After three years of stalling, throat clearing and excuse-making, three years of inaction and silence, it’s now time for the Chicago Park District to officially rename Douglas Park for noted African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Unofficially, the deed has already been done. Nearly every entrance sign I saw Tuesday morning as I drove around and through the 162-acre West Side park has been edited with paint or stickers to add the extra S.

A close inspection of the several signs that still read “Douglas Park” reveals that someone — A Park District employee? A fan of Stephen A. Douglas, the U.S. senator from Illinois for whom the park was named in 1869? — has painted over or removed the additional letter.

They said it was inappropriate for a major city park in a predominantly black area to bear the name of a Civil War-era politician whose wife owned enslaved people and who argued that the institution of slavery ought to be put to a vote in each new territory as the country expanded westward.

They promoted the suggestion of Ald. Michael Scott Jr., 24th, whose ward includes Douglas Park, to simply add an S to the signage and announce that the memorial honor now belongs to Douglass, a once-enslaved writer, orator, activist and preacher who was a giant of the 19th century despite having little direct connection to Chicago or Illinois.

[PBRCat]

More cultural appropriation.

The career of Stephen Douglas: Representative in the Illinois General Assembly, Illinois Supreme Court Justice, Illinois Secretary of State, US Representative in Congress, US Senator, Democratic Presidential Nominee. Credited with successfully promoting the expansion of the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad linking Chicago with New Orleans.

[OttawaFreeper]

But wasn’t Douglass a Republican?

[VanDeKoik]

Shhhhhh.

Dont let them know.

[Flick Lives]

But wasn’t Douglass a Republican?

—

Stand back. They’re on a roll. ;-)

[Stevenc131]

Douglass, a Republican, believed in Democracy (real Democracy, not the BLM chaos) and gun rights. He said ‘a man’s rights rests in three boxes. The ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box’.