"Yes, Madison did horrible things but that was a long time ago and he no longer is “hurting people” plus he was a founding father and we should acknowledge him- why change it?"
Our high school is one of the most diverse in Oregon, with almost 67% of students coming from Black, Indigenous, LatinX, Asian, American Indian, and other communities of color. At Madison, our values are Community, Respect, Education, Equity, and Diversity. Our school’s namesake, President James Madison’s racist beliefs and actions stand in direct conflict with our school’s and our district’s commitment to racial equity. James Madison recognized the immorality of enslaving humans, but he continued to enslave over 100 people throughout his lifetime, he made sure Black Americans were counted as 3/5ths of a human in the Constitution as a way to give more representation and power to slave-states, and he attacked Native American nations as he made racist and bigoted statements to justify such attacks. When our public schools are named after individuals who advanced slavery and systemic racism, and we allow those names to remain on school property, we tacitly endorse their values as our own. In 2019, the Madison Peace and Justice Club conducted a poll where more than 85% of students supported the name change, and in 2020, a Change.org petition garnered over 4,300 signatures. This effort coincides with a district-wide policy from Spring 2020 that put in motion a process for re-evaluating the names of all PPS high schools (Bennon).
We want ALL students, staff, faculty, and people of the community to feel welcomed when they arrive at the steps of Madison. At this tender age, there are already enough pressures and responsibilities and being able to lift this weight would lessen that load. Although this may seem like a small, insignificant step towards uniting a community to some, it sheds light to correct a whole lot more injustices to work on in this community.
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To keep his small family of four white people in the height of 18th century luxury, James Madison enslaved 100 black people.
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Madison insisted that enslaved Africans were entitled to a right to liberty and proposed that Congress purchase all the slaves in the United States and set them free. Yet not only did he hold slaves on his plantation in Virginia and fail to free them upon his death, but he also originated the notorious three-fifths compromise in the Constitution, which counted a slave as three-fifths of a person for purposes of legislative representation.
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The Madisons brought a number of enslaved people with them from Montpelier, but they also hired out enslaved laborers from other slave owners in D.C., paying wages directly to the slave owners rather than to the people actually doing the work.
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