Name a reminder of brutalities

Recent letters have responded to the May 17 article about Col. George Wright’s sordid history. One notes a 1990s Spokane Falls Community College staff meeting at which faculty member Rudy Alexander spoke against name-changing.

I attended. Rudy argued that we need to be reminded evil things took place in our history. Usually, we name places and buildings honoring people. Yet, sometimes, a name serves to remind us of our own brutalities.

Initially, Fort George Wright Drive honored the man. Now, the story line reflects the truth, and reminds us that people sometimes do horrible things: here, to the indigenous Native Americans. Rudy, a hard-headed intellectual, argued much as Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., did when asked about renaming the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

Lewis, among the marchers beaten there, responded “No,” that we need a plaque reminding people Edmund Pettus, Alabama Confederate general and the state’s first Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, dedicated his life to subjugating African Americans. It’s why we marched then, and march now. The faculty voted for this same argument.

Along Fort George Wright Drive, erect statues of 800 horses, statues children can climb on, dreaming about deeply loved ponies Native children could no longer ride.

Ron Johns

Spokane