As communities debate taking down controversial statues and monuments across the country, Boston activists have filed a petition asking officials to discuss a possible name change for the city\u2019s iconic Faneuil Hall.<\/p>\n
Peter Faneuil, the founder of the meeting hall and marketplace, was a slave owner and slave trader who built and then donated Faneuil Hall to Boston. It is believed that the site was built with money from the slave trade.<\/p>\n
Kevin Peterson of the New Democracy Coalition has proposed renaming the location after Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave who was said to be the first casualty in the American Revolution. After nearly a year of ongoing discussion, a petition was submitted to the Boston City Council in June to propose the change.<\/p>\n
The building is owned by the city, but the National Park Service conducts tours and runs a visitor\u2019s center on the historic site.<\/p>\n
A name change would be significant. For more than 200 years, the historic building has stood nearby Quincy Market, a cobblestone area lined with restaurants, shops and vendors selling everything from lemonade to souvenirs. It attracts visitors from all over the world.<\/p>\n
Ron Dudek, a visitor from Connecticut, is against the renaming proposal. \u201cLeave history alone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Julia Smith, a college student, favors the change. \u201cSlave owning is an unjust and an unacceptable matter which history should not be built on,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n
Liv Timmins, a high school teacher from Medford who also wishes to see the name changed said: \u201cThose who upheld that system shouldn\u2019t be glorified for what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen whether Faneuil Hall gets a new name. Renaming famous spots isn\u2019t completely foreign to the city. Recently Yawkey Way near Fenway Park was renamed Jersey Street following a debate about whether Tom Yawkey, a former owner of the Red Sox was racist.<\/p>\n
By Emma Williams and Jenny Ferm<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As communities debate taking down controversial statues and monuments across the country, Boston activists have filed a petition asking officials to discuss a possible name change for the city\u2019s iconic Faneuil Hall. Peter Faneuil, the founder of the meeting hall and marketplace, was a slave owner and slave trader who built and then donated Faneuil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"coauthors":[19,20],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions\/342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehsjc.org\/therenaissance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}