By Donald H. Harrison
(Family Photo)
SAN DIEGO – Community activist Erik B. Anderson announced on Saturday that he has begun a petition campaign to remove the signage honoring Andrew Jackson from what has now been officially designated by law as the Susan A. Davis Post Office.
Post offices around the country have been renamed in honor of individuals from their respective communities, but the U.S. Postal Service, which is an independent executive agency, has installed plaques honoring those individuals rather than taking down the old designations, former Congresswoman Davis told me during a ceremony honoring her on Thursday, July 6.
To replace the lettering on post office branches throughout the country would be expensive, requiring a congressional appropriation, she said.
While many of the post office branches have regional names, the one in the Rolando neighborhood of San Diego, located at 6401 El Cajon Boulevard, is named for the 7th President of the United States, and that, according to Anderson, is unacceptable.
In June 2020, Anderson started the successful campaign to rename the Post Office’s Andrew Jackson Station, gathering 1464 signatures on a petition to do so. At that time, he had no particular preference for whom the post office branch should be named instead of Jackson; he just wanted Jackson’s name removed. Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego) subsequently introduced successful legislation to rename it in honor of Davis, who as her predecessor, served 20 years in the House of Representatives. Davis and Jacobs are both members of the San Diego Jewish community.
In the new petition, Anderson calls for “removing the signage referring to, honoring and glorifying Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States, enslaver of souls, author of the Indian Removal Act and perpetrator of genocide.”
The petition, also seeking the updating of the U.S. Postal Service website to reflect the name change, is addressed to U.S. Postmaster Louis Dejoy; Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-San Diego); California’s two Democratic U.S. senators Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla, and to President Joe Biden.
Anderson asserts that leaving the Andrew Jackson name on the building “is an unambiguous violation of federal Public Law 117-134 (which renamed it for former Congresswoman Davis). There is no need to enact a new public law,” he stated in the petition. “Tear it down now.”
In an email exchange, Anderson told why he believes Jackson’s name should come down from the facility.
“I studied abroad in Ghana, West Africa when I was a college student in 1995. I spent three days touring Slave Castles and burial grounds in El Minah, Mensah, and Cape Coast,” he said. We saw dungeons, and loading docks, balconies where overseers chose their rape victims for the night.” The touring group, in an effort to feel what those enslaved felt, “were voluntarily locked in a room that had a Skull and Crossbones on it.”
“When I moved to Rolando in 2015, I was taken aback that my post office was named after Andrew Jackson, who enslaved 161 souls descended from people who passed through those castles, not to mention being responsible for the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears,” Anderson continued. “I read a book about Andrew Jackson once. Apparently, without him, our country might have gone bankrupt and not exist anymore. He also expanded our territory and was a talented military officer. But if genocide is the cost, then maybe our country deserved to fail.”
A parallel campaign in the Rolando neighborhood is to change the name of Clay Elementary School at 6506 Solita Avenue and Clay Park at 4767 Seminole Drive, both of which were named after Henry Clay, a Kentuckian who served in Congress and as Secretary of State in the administration of the nation’s 6th President, John Quincy Adams. Clay was the enslaver of more than 122 people over his lifetime.
The San Diego Unified School District Board of Education has jurisdiction over the school while the Mayor and City Council of San Diego have authority over the park.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
Update from Amy Kuhn, Chief of Staff, Rep. Sara Jacobs, July 12, 2023:
“Regarding the naming – we have been in close contact with the USPS about the process for removing Andrew Jackson’s name from the building, and have done additional outreach to the White House and the Postmaster General himself. We, as employees of the legislative branch, aren’t permitted to be involved in the removal itself, but we have contacted the Postal Service a number of times and continue to do so regarding next steps.”
Thanks again, Erik.