The first thing I thought about when I read about the bridge yesterday morning was the people who likely went into the river and died. My heart went out to them and their families. None of us want to die in terror.
The second thing I thought about was Francis Scott Key and what a thoroughly despicable human being he was and what a travesty that a beautiful and major bridge would be named in his honor. Who doesn’t love the artistry and engineering of a beautiful bridge?
The third thing to cross my mind was America’s ‘curated’ narrative and who would we be as a nation if we simply taught history as it actually happened. I’m sure students could handle it.
Fort McHenry, the War of 1812 battle site that inspired Key to write a tribute to bravery and freedom while being detained by the British on a ship in Baltimore harbor is visible from the bridge named in his honor. Lesser known, because we don’t teach it, is the fact that as he was writing about freedom, he was denying freedom to the enslaved humans that he ‘owned’ and kept in bondage.
Also not well known is that the song Key wrote that came to be known as The Star Spangled Banner and was later chosen as our national anthem has four verses. The third verse of the song chosen to represent the greatness of America, nods to slavery. And although no one seems to know or agree on the meaning of, “No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave”, there is no debate over what Key said about descendants of Africans; “Africans in America are a distinct and inferior race of people which all experience proves to be the greatest evil that afflicts a community.”
And there is no discord about Key’s time as District Attorney for the District of Columbia when he tried unsuccessfully to try a man and have him “hung by the neck until dead” for the crime of being in possession of abolitionist literature.
When I first read about the bridge early yesterday morning, I envisioned maybe dozens of vehicles careening off the broken edge. And if the ship had struck the bridge a few hours later, that would likely have been the case. On average, some 31,000 vehicles cross Frances Scott Key bridge every day. But given the early morning hour and the quick actions of both the ship’s captain’s ‘Mayday’ distress call and the Baltimore City Police, traffic was halted. It is thought that no cars went over the edge, but eight workers who were repairing potholes went into the river. Only two were pulled out alive. Ironically, all were brown-skinned immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. I can’t help but wonder how Mr. Key would have felt about that.
Hopefully when the bridge is rebuilt, it will bear a name other than Francis Scott Key.