Erase the Name of Thomas Jefferson

The loony left is at it again in The Peoples’ Republic of Berkeley. An April vote will be held by parents, teachers and students at the city’s Thomas Jefferson Elementary School on whether to change the school’s name because Jefferson owned slaves.

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This latest salvo by the left in a continuing crusade of destructive political correctness is misguided in that it ignores the temper of the times. Slave ownership was common for men in Jefferson’s social and economic circles, including George Washington and other prominent Southerners. Jefferson inherited his Monticello estate, on which slaves were kept, from his father.

Customs matter in evaluating historical figures. Suppose the death penalty is eventually abolished and virtually all Americans come to look back at the practice with revulsion. Will the name of a death penalty proponent such as Ronald Reagan, or even Bill Clinton, be removed from schools or public buildings because the former presidents weren’t “enlightened” during their time?

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This will not be the first name change at a Berkeley school. In the late 1990’s a school named for Christopher Columbus was rebuilt as Rosa Parks Elementary and more recently Abraham Lincoln Elementary was changed to Malcolm X. Since Lincoln opposed slavery his sin must have been the fact he was a Republican.

So, it looks like the “Author of the Declaration of Independence, secretary of state under Washington and later the third president of the United States, Jefferson was a philosopher, architect, musician, scientist, horticulturist, diplomat, inventor, historian and, at age 76, founder of the University of Virginia” can’t hold a candle to the man whose main accomplishments include the creation of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee and leading a nationwide boycott of California table grapes.

Let’s see… wrote the Declaration of Independence, president of the US … started a union … what a dilemma having to choose between two such men. How would you vote?