Bellingham WA removes signs on bridge

[struggle4progress]

Allison Sundell
KING 6:08 PM. PDT August 18, 2017

... City councilmembers asked the administration .. to look into renaming Pickett Bridge ...

“We are a city committed to civil rights for all people, and we need to stand up to hate and take steps towards healing our country and our communities," Mayor Kelli Linville said in a release.

Pickett Bridge was named after Captain George E. Pickett, a U.S. Army officer who built Fort Bellingham in the 1850’s and supervised the construction of the first bridge across Whatcom Creek. Pickett left Western Washington in 1861 to fight for his home state, Virginia, in the Civil War ...

http://www.king5.com/news/local/bellingham/bellingham-removes-signs-on-bridge-named-for-confederate-leader/465506847

[calimary]

1. Drain the swamp.

[GulfCoast66]

2. I support removing confed memorials from the public square

But am ambivalent on this one.

If the bridge has always been named for the man who built it and who settled the area then we may actually be removing history that should be remembered. If the bridge was named to honor his civil war role then who knows. But either was it is not a memorial to the traitor in the civil war but a man who had an early impact on that community.

Not losing sleep either way, but I think this may be jumping the shark.

[struggle4progress]

3. This bridge dates from 1920, though Pickett was associated with a former bridge build around 1857

The DAR wanted his name on the bridge as publicity for his house in town which they own, and more recently successfully lobbied for more prominent signs, as shown in the links below:

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/dean-kahn/q5nacu/picture32668377/alternates/FREE_768/Pickett%20bridge%20plaque

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/dean-kahn/874mg0/picture32668374/alternates/LANDSCAPE_1140/Pickett%20Bridge,%20Edgar%20Franks

[GulfCoast66]

4. Thanks for the background

So rename away.

Looks like they renamed it in his honor just when there was an effort to sanitize and canonize the confed traitors.

About the time that any African American social and economic progress was driven into the ground.