Local Park May Be Named After Racist

Jens Jensen Park at 486 Roger Williams Ave. in Highland Park may get another name after historians unveiled that its current namesake may have been a racist.

Jensen, a well-known Chicago landscape designer who opened his own practice in Highland Park during the early 20th century, has been the namesake of the park he designed since the 1980s.

But that all may change following revelations he may have held views of inferiority regarding certain groups of people.

Park District of Highland Park board president Scott Meyers raised the issue with the board at its October 27 meeting, according to the Highland Park News. Meyers showed concern regarding a historical report about the relationship between Jensen’s beliefs about Nordic racial superiority and his insistence that only native plants be used in designs.

Jensen allegedly wrote in a 1936 German magazine, “I am searching for the new ideals of your country, and I fail to see much ... There are new things, but they smack of the Latin or the black man’s intellect and not of yours — Mediterranean intellect is driving northward. It has penetrated into my country and into the rest of my Scandinavian kin.”

“Needless to say, I find these statements to be very troubling,” Meyers said. “I find it very troubling that the park district has embraced this person and provided the honorific of naming a park after him, understanding of course that he did design the park.”

The board will consult with local preservationists, the Ravinia Neighbors Association and the city’s human rights commission before taking action.

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