Many people stuck at the Blaine border crossing must have wondered when somebody would do something about the inappropriate highway marker honoring Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States.
Finally, somebody is acting. State Rep. Hans Dunshee is offering a resolution to remove the name of Jefferson Davis from Highway 99 in Washington. He would have the Transportation Commission rename the route the William P. Stewart Memorial Highway.
As all legislative bodies do with resolutions honoring everything from championship high school sports teams to farm products (Potato Day, for example) and ethnic heritage celebrations (National Tartan Day), the Legislature should approve Dunshee’s proposal with little wasted time.
This is not about political correctness, a pose we occasionally satirize. It is not, as in the case of the New York firefighters statue, an interesting argument over whether artistic license or journalistic authenticity should hold sway.
This is about whether we continue to honor a man who led the war to preserve slavery (a war many letter writers have argued was about state’s rights. But the rights the South sought centered on the "right" to own slaves).
The state of Washington cannot support such a figure. It is appalling that our state officials ever did so. But, as Dunshee notes, the Ku Klux Klan was once strong in this area, particularly in the decade before the state’s 1939 decision to honor Davis.
Could any name be more out of place here than that of Davis? The insurrection he led as president of the Confederate States brought tragedy and suffering to Americans on both sides of the Civil War. And the South’s fight was on the wrong side of America’s greatest moral issue, slavery. No discussions about "states’ rights" or a supposedly overbearing federal government can change that.
Whether or not Davis had personal qualities that justify honoring him in the South, there is no reason to commemorate him here. We are not the South. Davis is not a part of our state’s history. William Stewart is.
Appropriately, for a state that works hard to welcome people of all backgrounds, William Stewart was a soldier who fought for the North in the Civil War and came to the Snohomish area in the early 1880s. When Washington received statehood in 1889, he was one of only 16 Americans of African descent in Snohomish County. He established a prominent, hard-working family, some of whom continue to honor this area with their presence. As great-granddaughter Marilyn Quincy of Everett said the other day, "The community as a whole embraced him and us."
If there’s a legitimate debate regarding Dunshee’s resolution, it’s whether the highway ought to be named after a prominent figure from government. But historical research and memory have two equally legitimate streams, drawing from the civic lives of great leaders and the everyday lives of all of us.
Political leaders receive plenty of honors. It is appropriate to occasionally honor one person who, in military service and family life, represents Washingtonians — of all backgrounds — who serve their country and struggle to make a better life for themselves, their children and their communities.
The William P. Stewart Memorial Highway? That sounds perfect.
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