Civil rights activists were shot down when they tried to divert attention away from recovery and repair efforts to focus on renaming the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Caucus of African American leaders released a unanimous resolution calling to rename the fallen bridge, but Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) is solely focused on restoration efforts.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Moore sought to redirect public attention to the bridge currently lying in the Patapsco River and toward recovering more bodies from the disaster instead of talking about the bridge’s namesake.
”I think any other conversations along those lines, there will be time for that, but now’s not the time,” he said.
In another statement to Fox News, Moore said he is “laser-focused on providing closure to these families, clearing the channel, and rebuilding the bridge.”
Moore signed the PORT Act into law on Tuesday, which will seek to establish temporary relief programs and scholarships for the families of transportation workers who die on the job.
Civil rights groups have targeted Key in recent days because the national anthem’s writer was once a slave owner and allegedly said black Americans are a “distinct and inferior race of people, which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”
That quote has been disputed by the Star Spangled Music Foundation as an error by a biographer in interpreting an 1839 pamphlet in which Key was sharing what he thought were the views of southern Christian Colonizationists.
During his life, Key released some of his slaves and, as a lawyer, represented both free black Marylanders and slaveowners. There’s also evidence he regretted representing black Marylanders as he believed it “produced for them nothing but evil” as he could not remember many circumstances where suing for their freedom did not lead to their ruin.
President Joe Biden also seemed out of sync with the civil rights group’s call for a name change when he recalled the British attacking Baltimore as inspiration for Key’s famous song at the bridge last week.
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“During the war of 1812, a young Marylander named Francis Scott Key, to whom the bridge is named after, sat in a boat in this very harbor, and he watched the British troops launch an attack after attack on American forces,” Biden said then.
Carl O. Snowden, convener of the Caucus of African American leaders, expects opposition to his group’s resolution, but will still request Moore’s approval on the issue this week.
