Buffalo NAACP: Stop Naming Things After 13th President

Buffalo’s celebration of former President Millard Fillmore as a hometown hero is evident throughout the city and suburbs — in the street, college and hospital that bear his name, in the statue that rises outside City Hall and in the landmark status of the house he built.

That’s enough, says the NAACP.

The Buffalo branch of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization has asked elected officials to deny any future requests to attach the 13th president’s name to places or things, citing his signing of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act that allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves.

“We didn’t ask them to destroy anything or remove anything,” Buffalo NAACP President Frank Mesiah said. “Just don’t do anything to enhance his presence … because, from our perspective, he was not a friend.”

Aurora Historical Society Director Robert Goller said Fillmore’s signing of the 1850 act is just one part of his legacy. Fillmore was an abolitionist and just the third president who didn’t own slaves, but he signed the act to try to stave off the Civil War.

“It didn’t work,” Goller said. “The compromise actually just made the North mad because it kept slavery and the South mad because it prevented its spread to California and out West.”

The NAACP’s stance is understandable, Goller said, “but I think all of the accomplishments (Fillmore) made in Buffalo is why there are streets named after him and places named after him. You have to take the person as a whole.”

This article appeared in print on page 32 of the February 18th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.