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| WHEN SYMBOLS CLASH
Should America re-evaluate its civic symbols? December 10, 1997 |
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Questions asked
in this forum:
Should we avoid using people as civic symbols? Should we treat school names differently? How do other countries deal with controversial symbols? Should we consider some figures in American history sacred? Should a community be allowed to choose its own symbols? Additional comments and questions. Since everyone has both admirable and distasteful elements in their pasts, should we avoid naming our schools after specific people? Instead, should we name schools after geographical locations or ideas we think people represent like "discovery" or "freedom?"
Clarence Page responds:
I think various communities have the right to name schools after whomever they please. In cities like Chicago, for example, it is common for school names to change when the ethnicity of the neighborhood changes. From"Edison" to"King" to "Juarez." It's the American way.
Professor Sean Wilentz responds:
Yes, people are invariably a mixture of good and bad -- but by that principle, it would be impossible to honor anyone, ever, with a school naming or anything else. Naming schools after geographical locations is perfectly okay -- since it mixes exactness with a bit of local pride. (The three schools in my town, for example, are named after two parks and a river--and the names work well.) By contrast, substituting broad principles -- "discovery" or "freedom" -- seems pretty vague to me, like honoring apple pie, motherhood, and the Stars and Stripes. This sort of symbolic honoring should be direct, concrete, and not merely allegorical.As for honoring individuals, I've always thought it best to honor some national worthy with a local connection -- combining the geographic connection with the idea of honoring a specific person. For example, my old grammar school, P.S. 8 in Brooklyn, was also called the Robert Fulton School, since Fulton experimented with his steamboat not far away. A nice idea as far as it went, which conveyed a sense of connection to place as well as to a great American.
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