Historic Square Stripped of US Vice President's Name
Nine months after leaders of Georgia’s oldest city stripped the name of a U.S. vice president from one of its public squares, nominees are being considered for the park’s new name.
A pair of citizen advisory panels has submitted six names for Savannah’s city council to consider for a scheduled Aug. 24 vote on a new name for the square. None of the finalists are white men.
Instead, the nominees are four black people — a pastor, a formerly enslaved woman, a civil rights hero and an Army pilot — as well as Native Americans who inhabited the area when Savannah was founded and a group of women who in the 1950s put Savannah on the path to preserving its past.
“Regardless of what name is picked, it will be a name that represents more diversity in Savannah and sort of expands the story that Savannah tells about itself,” said Kristopher Monroe, chairman of the local Historic Site and Monument Commission, which made its recommendations earlier this month.
The square near the southern edge of Savannah’s downtown historic district has been without a name since Nov. 10, when the city council voted unanimously to get rid of the name Calhoun Square.
For more than 170 years, the space was named for John C. Calhoun, a South Carolina politician who served in Congress and as U.S. vice president in two administrations before his death in 1850.
Calhoun was among Washington’s most vocal supporters of slavery in the decades preceding the Civil War, which made him a target of activists seeking to rid public spaces of statues and other markers honoring the Confederacy.
“This square has a lot of memories for what used to be,” said Patt Gunn, who gives guided tours focused on Savannah’s black history. “It is honorable to say we can remove Calhoun.”
Gunn leads a group of activists that wants the square to honor Susie King Taylor, who assisted the Union Army as a nurse during the Civil War and went on to establish multiple schools for freed black people.
The recommended finalists also include the Rev. George Leile, who in 1777 founded one of America’s oldest black churches in Savannah. W.W. Law led the civil rights campaign that peacefully desegregated the city’s schools, stores and restaurants in 1963. Army Maj. Clayton Carpenter, a special operations pilot, saved his crew but perished in a 2014 helicopter crash during training in Savannah.
The other finalists are the name “Creek Square” for the Native Americans who lived in the area, and “Seven Sisters Square” for the activists who kickstarted Savannah’s historic preservation movement to protect old homes and buildings from demolition.
Not everyone agrees Calhoun deserved to lose the distinction.
Savannah resident David Tootle filed a lawsuit last month asking a Chatham County judge to block the city council’s upcoming vote. He argues that removing signs bearing Calhoun’s name from the square violates a 2019 Georgia law passed to protect public monuments such as Confederate memorials from removal.
“He was a major figure in American history, whether we like him or not,” Tootle said of Calhoun. “I don’t agree with some of the things he did, but it doesn’t take away his contribution to the country.”
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said the city has not violated the state law. The city owns the square, he said, and therefore has the right to choose its name.
Savannah officials aren’t bound to choose a name from the six recommended finalists, but Johnson said he is impressed with the list.
“I think any of the names can easily be the name of the square,” the mayor said. “All of them have merits.”
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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