The Naming of Things

Yesterday’s blog about the name change controversy has gotten me to thinking...no small feat...about the fact that we Americans have always been fond of naming stuff after famous people. Just yesterday I took the John Rolfe parkway over to the Willey bridge on my way to John Tyler Community College. Everywhere you look in this city, there’s some school, building or street named after some dead guy. It just stands to reason that at some point, after several generations have come and gone, somebody is going to ask the question...Hey, who the heck was Ed Willey?? Then maybe some group of civic-minded people will suggest changing the name to honor a more recent hero or heroine. This, I believe, is right and proper.

As far as the naming of schools is concerned, I got curious and decided to do some research. I wondered which American President had the most schools named after him. I guessed correctly:

94 John Kennedy 

73 Thomas Jefferson

53 George Washington

52 Woodrow Wilson

45 Abraham Lincoln

24 Theodore Roosevelt

20 John Adams 

Of the more recent Presidents...

15 Ronald Reagan

10 Barack Obama

3  Bill Clinton

2 George W. Bush

1 George H.W. Bush 

Modern sensitivities are such that each one of these men carries with him politically incorrect baggage. Depending on how easily offended you are, it might scandalize you to discover that there are 52 schools in this country named after Woodrow Wilson, that well-documented and virulent racist. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were both slave holders, Washington reluctantly so, Jefferson with great passion (figuratively and literally). Abe Lincoln is an all timer, and John Adams was one of the few Founders who never owned a slave and thought the institution a blight on the country.

But...what about John Kennedy? 

In the wake of his shocking assassination, the entire country mourned that such a young, virile man could be struck down. As a result of this grief, Americans went on a street, building and school-naming frenzy to honor the man. To this day, our 35th President remains an icon of the Democratic Party. This is a very curious and unexplainable phenomenon. In today’s Democratic Party John Kennedy would be to the right of...well, practically everyone. In fact, he might be kicked out of the party altogether. Dude was a staunch anti-communist, a tax cutter, quite reluctant on civil rights and suspicious of Martin Luther King. In the modern Democratic Party, the #MeToo crowd would crucify the guy. Still, there he sits, at or near the top of the food chain of the party’s heros. Go figure.

Anyway, my point is, with regards to the naming of things, I believe that each generation should have a say. New heros always come along, and at some point the Estes Kefauver Bridge will no longer make any sense. But, something tells me that until we can all get passed this phase of hyper-polarization in which we find ourselves, I suggest that we stick to naming things after flowers and trees, and inanimate objects.