US conservation group to drop Audubon name over 'pain' caused by slaveholder
By: Oliver Milman (MSN)
Jesus H. Christ!?!
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A leading US conservation group, the Audubon Naturalist Society (ANS), has announced it will change its name, due to the "pain" caused by the 19th-century ornithologist and slaveholder John James Audubon.
© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The group, which holds wildlife sanctuaries across Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland, said that it had become clear its name did not connect to its diverse set of programmes and that some members and volunteers had objected.
Related: The Birds of America by John James Audubon - in pictures
"The mission and vision of the organisation have not changed," said Lisa Alexander, executive director of ANS.
"The deliberate and thoughtful decision to change our name is part of our ongoing commitment to creating a larger and more diverse community of people who treasure the natural world and work to preserve it. It has become clear that this will never be fully possible with the current name."
© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Images from the book The Birds of America 1827-1838 by John James Audubon. Audubon, who achieved fame through his detailed studies and illustrations of American birds, was a slaveholder.
Originally called the Audubon Society of the District of Columbia, ANS was set up in 1897 as part of a wave of such groups seeking to protect bird species then under threat from hunters.
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Audubon achieved lasting fame for his detailed studies and illustrations of American birds, made in the early 19th century.
More recently, he has come under scrutiny for his buying and selling of enslaved people in the 1820s; for his objections to the abolitionist movement; and for writings that portrayed black and indigenous people as inferior to whites.
Audubon, who was born in modern-day Haiti but moved to the US before dying in New York in 1851, took five human skulls from a battlefield in Texas and sent them to Samuel Morton, a doctor who attempted to determine differences that he claimed showed varying intelligence levels between races.
"We can and must do better to address equity and racial justice in everything we do," said Diane Wood, incoming board president of ANS. "We are deeply invested in breaking down barriers and acknowledging our part in an exclusionary past."
ANS said a new name will be chosen following a "deliberate and thoughtful process of listening and learning" with its members and other nature enthusiasts.
The National Audubon Society, the largest group to still hold Audubon's name, has acknowledged his actions but has not committed to changing its title.
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When is this bullshit gonna end....................
Not until the left erases every white male from history. Or at the very least tarnishes them to the point they become palatable to their lemming disciples. That is the goal.
When all the genealogy books are burnt to cinders.
It's not complicated , rather, the explanation given by the organization is very straightforward.
People need to get over their hangups about racial justice.
There is nothing insane about it, it is simply the right thing to do. Why are conservatives afraid of the modern world?
That is the bottom line. This cultural war against the past is a progressive attempt to cancel our history and culture and replace it and them with their useful idiots.
People need to get over their hangups about actual history. Everyone's going to forget what Santayana said.
What a bunch of unmitigated horse manure!
Exactly!
They should change their name to the Bird Brain Society.
Then they can change the "demeaning" name of Blackbirds to Nightbirds.
And burn these fucking books.
Ah the stupidity of selectively applying today's standards to people and actions 100+ years ago.
Amazing how the left is so adamant about judging people from 100+ years ago by the standards of today!
Great Gobs of Henshit! This silliness is gone too far
Please be advised, I intend to plagiarize this phrase at some future date. Possibly with abandon.
Jack & Jeremy, use it often and with pride
Consider this stolen.
Well, look at things differently. As nobody is 100% perfect, eventually they will cancel out everybody and everything. And voila, the planet will be saved from Global Warming (or climate change, I can never keep all that straight) as nothing every existed... Woo Hoo!!!!!
Thank Goodness! Our long, dark nightmare is over. People of color can now go about their day peacefully, and without fear of injustice, because the bird watcher club is changing it’s name. Hallelujah!
I doubt if the birds and animals helped by Audubon's work and legacy care if he owned slaves, I sure don't. The wildlife sanctuaries won't be improved by changing the name.
Stroud Naturalist Society should be their new name for Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz
Yes, that should satisfy the woke crowd....
Robert Stroud - Wikipedia
Well, Robert Franklin Stroud was a brilliant self taught ornithologist, but he was also a psychopathic murderer incarcerated for life. Yep, that would fit in real good with some on the looney to left!
They would likely prefer him to the original…
We're just going to have to kill off all the birds - they benefitted, too.