DC, MD Lawmakers Push To Remove Segregationist's Name From Chevy Chase Circle

DC/MARYLAND — Lawmakers from Maryland and D.C. introduced legislation Tuesday to remove the name of a former senator from Nevada from Chevy Chase Circle, which is located partially in the District of Columbia and partially in Maryland.

The name of Francis G. Newlands, a Democrat who served in the House and then the Senate from 1893 to 1917, is memorialized on a fountain and plaque in the circle.

Federal legislation is needed to remove Newlands’ name because Chevy Chase Circle is managed by the National Park Service.

U.S. Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, Democrats from Maryland, introduced legislation in the Senate. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat who represents the Chevy Chase area of Montgomery County, and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) introduced the legislation in the House of Representatives.

“Francis Newlands — who developed Chevy Chase — was a white supremacist who worked to actively ensure his developments were inaccessible to Black, Jewish, and working class families,” Van Hollen said in a statement Tuesday.

“We should not be memorializing him and the deeply harmful policies he stood for – the legacies of which are still impacting marginalized communities to this day,” Van Hollen added.

The land development company founded by Newlands, which continues to operate, supports the community’s decision to remove Newlands’ name from the memorial fountain in the interest of building “a more inclusive community,” Cardin said.

Statues dedicated to Confederates and segregationists belong in museums, not on streets where they “can be misconstrued to mean current support of their racist ideologies,” Norton said.

“The plaque and fountain dedicated to Newlands tell no story. They are meant only to honor a segregationist who argued that voting rights won for African Americans as a result of the Civil War should be repealed,” she said.

In a statement Tuesday, Elissa Leonard, chair of the Chevy Chase Village Board of Managers, thanked the lawmakers for introducing the bill.

A Village Board resolution adopted in September 2020, according to Leonard, states that the “Board of Managers does not want the fountain’s memorial to be seen as honoring systemic racism and discrimination that is incompatible with the values of Chevy Chase Village.”