By Susanna Ray
Herald Writer
OLYMPIA — The Washington State Patrol was keeping an extra eye out over a Snohomish Democrat’s family as a public hearing Monday at the Capitol for the legislator’s bill turned racial.
State Rep. Hans Dunshee is trying to name what’s left of Highway 99 after William Stewart, a Union soldier in the Civil War and one of the first black men to live in Snohomish County.
Dunshee’s goal is to get rid of a stone marker at the Peace Arch crossing near the Canadian border that designates the road as "Jefferson Davis Highway No. 99." The state parks department told him it would take down the monument if the highway was renamed. He wants the marker put in a museum.
But his office was flooded with hundreds of e-mails and phone calls after The Herald reported his plan Jan. 24, and some of the messages have been threatening, he said.
So law enforcement officials have promised to watch over his wife and daughter in Snohomish while he’s in Olympia for the legislative session.
Dunshee also took safety precautions in removing his home address and telephone number from the legislative Web site.
At Monday’s hearing on his bill, HJM 4024, Dunshee reiterated his belief that as president of the Confederacy, Davis had led the fight to preserve slavery and therefore didn’t deserve the honor of having a highway named after him.
"The use of the Jefferson Davis Highway to advance the cause of neo-Confederacy is wrong," Dunshee said.
Marilyn Quincy, Georgina Paul and Marian Harrison, descendants of Stewart who still live in Snohomish County, spoke on the bill’s behalf, calling it "a beautiful gesture" to honor black soldiers who suffered so much and got so little recognition for their service to the country.
Harrison, who lives in Marysville, said Highway 99 has always been one of her primary traveling routes as it goes along Everett Mall Way and then south to Seattle. She wondered why it was named after Davis "when it’s nowhere near the South."
Washington members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the group that erected the marker in 1940, found numerous ties between Davis and the Northwest, notably his efforts in building highways here during his time as a U.S. senator and secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce, Marjorie Reeves testified.
Reeves, the local chapter’s historian, said earlier that she’s documented at least 107 Confederate veterans who moved to Washington after the Civil War. The Washington chapter will celebrate its centennial June 2, and Reeves has scrapbooks with documents, photos and newspaper clippings dating back to 1902 that show that her group and other similar groups used to be quite active in this state.
Monday’s meeting turned tense when James Morgan with the Sons of Confederate Veterans tried to respond to Dunshee’s assertion that such groups are racist and are trying to revise history. Morgan was cut off by the committee chairwoman when he began listing what he said were hate crimes by blacks against whites.
Morgan later said he agreed that Stewart is worthy of being honored, but that he and others resent the implication that they should be ashamed of Davis and their relatives who fought for the South in the Civil War.
You can call Herald Writer Susanna Ray at 360-586-3803
or send e-mail to ray@heraldnet.com.
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