Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Remove Racist's Name From Traffic Circle

News

By Teddy Grant Published: January 25, 2022

Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Remove Racist’s Name From Traffic Circle

(BNC Truth Logo)

In Summary

Francis G. Newlands was a segregationist who sought to keep Black families out of a D.C. neighborhood.

Senators in Maryland introduced a bill that would remove the name of a segregationist from a traffic circle in the D.C. area, The Associated Press reported.

Democratic Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen want Francis G. Newlands’ name off a fountain and plaque at Chevy Chase Circle, which borders Maryland and D.C.

Newlands was a former representative and U.S. senator who died in 1917 and worked to keep Black and Jewish families out of the D.C.’s Chevy Chase neighborhood. He also wanted the 15^th Amendment, which gave African American men the right to vote, to be amended.

“We should not be memorializing him and the deeply harmful policies he stood for—the legacies of which are still impacting marginalized communities to this day,” Van Hollen said, according to AP.

A similar bill was introduced by Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and D.C.’s nonvoting member of Congress Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.