George Floyd Hysteria Cancelled President John Tyler
The death of convicted felon and Minneapolis drug addict George Floyd five years ago at the hands of a police officer did more than trigger race riots across the nation, cause an estimated $1-2 billion in damage and take the life of at least one person, retired St. Louis Police Officer David Dorn, father of five.
After the death of Floyd angry leftists attempted to excise unpleasant chapters of American history by toppling statues and renaming schools and buildings.
Many historical figures associated with slavery, no matter their contributions to our young nation more than 200 years ago, were marginalized, vilified and erased.
Even Virginian John Tyler, one of the commonwealth’s most interesting - if controversial - figures.
I’m thinking about him today because his grandson - yes, you read that correctly the grandson of the 10th president - Harrison Ruffin Tyler, 96 - died last Sunday in the Westminster-Canterbury facility in Richmond.
The fact that a man born in 1790 still had a living grandson until this week is a testament to good genes, young wives and late marriages.
John Tyler served as governor of Virginia and a U.S. Senator before running for vice president. When President William Henry Harrison died after just 31 days in office, Tyler became the first man to become president without being elected to that office.
The Richmond-Times Dispatch wrote this week that Harrison’s cabinet loathed Tyler and referred to him as “His Accidency.”
Very clever.
The Whig Party declined to nominate Tyler in the next presidential election so he served just one term. Tyler was a staunch advocate for states’ rights and the rights of slave owners. He led an effort to forge a peace before the outbreak of the Civil War but eventually he joined the provisional congress of the confederacy.
Tyler holds the presidential record for the most offspring. He had 15 children with two wives. Harrison Ruffin Tyler was the son of Tyler’s 13th child, Lyon Gardiner Tyler. The former president was 63 when Lyon was born. In turn, Lyon was 75 when his son, Harrison, was born.
Lyon Gardiner Tyler, a noted historian, served as president of the College of William & Mary for three decades and members of the Tyler families treasured their ties with the university. Harrison Tyler, a William and Mary graduate, gave the school a gift of $5 million in 2001 to honor his father.
How does this relate to George Floyd? Here’s The Richmond-Times Dispatch version of events.
In the national reckoning on race after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd in 2020, many colleges removed names of schools or buildings named for people associated with the Confederacy. This included a number of tributes to John Tyler, a slave owner who was interred in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery in 1862 with a Confederate flag atop his casket.
In 2021, John Tyler Community College rechristened itself as Brightpoint Community College.
William & Mary rechristened an academic building, Tyler Hall, as Chancellors’ Hall, its former name, which honors the school’s chancellors, a ceremonial position.
The school’s board also voted to rename the Lyon Gardiner Tyler Department of History. Lyon Tyler, Harrison’s father, wrote in 1929 “A Confederate Catechism,” which defended the South’s position in the Civil War.
Do we really want to forget John Tyler, a man of his times? Or his son, Lyon? Is anyone dumb enough to believe that students enrolled in John Tyler Community College gave a fig about the fact that the name honored a man who once owned slaves? He was the 10th president of the United States. He ought not be forgotten.
Shame on William & Mary, which happily slurped up donations from this old Virginia family only to rub their names off buildings once the woke mob came calling.
Does anyone know if the college returned the $5 million the late Harrison Tyler so generously gave the school?
Doubt it.
Principles go only so far in academia. Somehow they always stop at the bank accounts.
