Black Lives Matter: Campaign to rename Washington DC after famous Scot

The renaming of Edinburgh University’s David Hume Tower has already caused a row – but now a petition is calling for the move to be reversed, unless the US Government is prepared to rename Washington DC.

University bosses said the building would now be known as 40 George Square following a 1,700-signature petition launched by an American student which condemned the 18th Century academic’s comments on race.

However, Scots author and playwright David Black has now launched a counter-campaign, calling for the building’s old name to be reinstated.

To emphasise the point, the petition is also calling for US capital Washington DC to be renamed Walkerton DC, after a Scots founding father.

Mr Black said this was because George Washington, the first US President after whom the city was named, kept slaves.

“A student from America has succeeded in persuading the university authorities in Edinburgh to remove the name of David Hume from the tallest building on campus,” said Mr Black.

“In the interests of consistency, if blacklisting is to be the fate of David Hume, then the name of George Washington should no longer be associated with the Federal Capital of the United States of America. The city should be renamed in recognition of a Scot, George Walker, who first identified the site by the Potomac River.”

Last month a Washington DC committee commissioned by Mayor Muriel Bowser recommended renaming a slate of government building, parks and public schools after determining their namesakes had ties to “slavery, systemic racism and other biases.”

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A number of past US presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, were identified as figures who should not have public buildings or parks named in their honour.

Mr Black said that while David Hume made a racially biased remark in a footnote to an essay he wrote in his 30s, he went on to become an outspoken opponent of slavery.

He said: “Unlike George and Martha Washington, who owned 317 enslaved people, he did not at any time actively participate in the slave trade, though unavoidably he came across many who did,” he said. “Washington should be redesignated ‘Walkerton DC’ at the earliest opportunity.

“We may, however, be minded to abandon this objective if Edinburgh University Senate and Council agree to reinstate the name of David Hume on the building.”

More than 200 people – many of them based in the US – have already signed Mr Black’s petition. A number of senior UK academics have also praised the campaign.
Prominent British philosopher, Professor Anthony Grayling, said: “We do better to learn from history than to try to obliterate it.

“We do better to measure the contributions made and the sins committed by major figures of the past by the whole person in his or her historical context.

“David Black’s suggestion is a reminder of these points.”

Asanga Welikala, a lecturer in public law at Edinburgh University, also backed the petition.

He said: “I am entirely in favour of David Black’s approach. There is no better way of puncturing the insufferable pomposity of woke politics than with a bit of humour.

“When I was an undergraduate in Yorkshire in the 1990s, northerners used to remind southerners that they don’t have the benefit of our disadvantages.

“It seems to me that well-meaning but ahistorical Americans need to be told a similar thing when they try to change the nature of things in other countries.”

Edinburgh University said the decision to rename the building was because of “sensitivities” around asking students to use a facility named after an 18th Century philosopher whose comments “rightly cause distress today”.

However, the university declined to comment further on the issue, or about Mr Black’s petition.

The Washington tourist board last night did not respond to a request for comment about the campaign to have the city renamed.