The city of Minneapolis has an opportunity to right a shameful wrong in the city’s history, and that is the decision to name one of its avenues after Charles Dight, a racist, ableist, eugenics touter and follower of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Eugenics is the practice of selectively breeding people with traits deemed more favorable, and Dight was “the chief advocate of a law regarding forced sterilization that was passed by the Minnesota Legislature in 1925 (and not repealed until 1975),” former Minnesota Rep. Phyllis Kahn wrote in the Star Tribune in July of 2015.

“In August 1933, Dight even communicated his views to Adolf Hitler, praising the German chancellor’s efforts ‘to stamp out mental inferiority among the German people,’” Kahn added. “Dight’s letter to Hitler enclosed a copy of a published letter that Dight had written to the editor of the Minneapolis Journal, praising Hitler’s eugenics plans and saying: ‘If carried out effectively, it will make him the leader in the greatest national movement for human betterment the world has ever seen.’” Years later, Noah McCourt, an autistic disability rights advocate, posted a petition to change the name of Dight Avenue, and as of Tuesday afternoon, 785 people had signed it.

McCourt wrote in the petition:

Dight not only founded the Minnesota Eugenics society but actively pursued the same type of eugenics as Nazi scientists such as Josef Mengele. In 1933, Dight wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler praising the Third Reich’s efforts to “stamp out mental inferiority.” This sort of legacy should not be recognized or lauded anywhere.

Minnesotans with disabilities continue to face significant discrimination every day. Nationally, 54 percent of police involved shootings involve someone with a disability.

The Disability Justice network is committed to combatting ableism in all of it’s intersectional formats and we are committed in building more inclusive communities and amplifying the voices of those living the disabled experience. We ask the Minneapolis community to join us in  this commitment.

In doing so, we say exactly what  Governor Luther Youngdhal said in the fall of 1949 as he stood in the Courtyard of Anoka State Hospital and burned mechanical restraints

we say to the them  that we understand them — that they need have no fears – that those around them are their friends.

Please join us in combatting discrimination and a history of state sanctioned violence and sign our petition to rename Dight Avenue.”

The intersection of Dight Avenue and 38th Street is about two miles east of the Cup Foods store George Floyd was murdered in front of on May 25, 2020. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering the Black father when he kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. McCourt, who is executive director of the Minnesota Disability Justice Network, told the Star Tribune he started the petition to have the avenue renamed because it is a poor representation of the diverse community it’s a part of. “In a community that’s been traumatized, making some of these more simplistic strides to address the historical and generational trauma that people face, I think, is a really positive step forward,” McCourt said.

City Council Member Andrew Johnson, who is pushing for the name change in his ward, has not indicated what he wants the avenue’s name to be changed to, but he told the Star Tribune: “We have an obligation to regularly consider how we are honoring people.” The name change would have to be approved by the Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Jacob Frey, which Johnson said he doesn’t anticipate being a problem. “Charles Dight is somebody who clearly did not share the values of our open and welcoming community,” Johnson told the Star Tribune.

No words more adequately depict the kind of man Dight was than his own, quoted by historian Gary Phelps in The Eugenics Crusade of Charles Fremont Dight: “JUST AS A STREAM will be impure that takes its origins from a cesspool, so will the children be defective or diseased who spring from parents, both of whom have the same inheritable defects, or who, if not themselves defective, carry in their blood — the germ plasm —the determiners of inheritable disease or a morbid mentality; and this takes place no matter how much the parents may have been improved by education and environment,” Dight wrote. ”Some politicians look only to the next election; the statesman looks to the next generation.” 

It’s a haunting thought from which the city of Minneapolis should want to take every measure to distance itself.