Civil Rights Groups Push To Rename Baltimore Bridge Due To Slavery Ties [Video]

Civil rights groups are urging political leaders to rename Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge following its collapse last month.

According to NBC News, the caucus of African American Leaders, whose members include various civil rights groups like the NAACP and National Coalition of 100 Black Women, voted last week to petition the Maryland state government to reconsider the name of the Baltimore bridge.

The group said the bridge should not be named after the writer of the national anthem, who was a slave holder and who the group said was against abolition.

Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner” while he was a prisoner aboard a British ship in the Port of Baltimore during the War of 1812, according to WTOP.

He grew up on a slaveholding plantation in Maryland and owned at least six enslaved individuals himself. He did free several of them eventually.

His relationship with the slavery is complicated. He opposed the trans-Atlantic slave trade, …