William L. Marcy sought to suppress abolitionism, according to University of Minnesota historian Aaron Hall. (Library of Congress/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Marcy Park, the only park in the University of Minnesota commercial district of Dinkytown, is named after William L. Marcy, a 19th-century American statesman who backed pro-slavery policies.

This week, his eponymous Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association launched a petition to buck the local park of Marcy's name, arguing that ongoing renovations present a prime opportunity to stop honoring a "cynical, racist politician that never even stepped foot in Minnesota."

Vic Thorstenson, president of the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association and a retired DFL political operative, quipped that although he's never been accused of "wokeness," he relished doing opposition research on Marcy.

"He never stepped foot here, so it raises the question of well, 'Why do we have a park named after this guy?' And then a little further investigation showed, jeez, he wasn't that great of a guy after all," Thorstenson said. "We're redoing the park. Let's get the community involved in finding out if they want to change the perspective."

Marcy was a prominent New Yorker whose 40-year political career in the mid-1800s included posts as U.S. Secretary of War and Secretary of State. Among his contemporaries, he had the reputation of a "doughface," a northerner with southern sympathies in the decades leading to the Civil War.

As an elected official, Marcy sought to suppress abolitionism and stymied factionalism among northern Democrats who tried to break from their southern leadership on most pro-slavery policies, said Aaron Hall, a University of Minnesota legal historian who specializes in United States governance between the Revolution and Reconstruction.

"Even within the 'mainstream' of northern electoral politics, Marcy chose to align himself as a friend of slaveholders because it better suited both his own political fortunes and his preferred vision of the Union," Hall said. "It was through the service of northern men such as Marcy that southern politicians were able, for a time, to wield such outsized influence in national political life."

As secretary of war, Marcy administered the invasion of Mexico to enlarge the slaveholding South. As secretary of state, he helped create the Ostend Manifesto, plans depicting "open plotting" by American diplomats to take Cuba, a "bastion of slavery" under Spain, and make it a part of the United States, Hall said.

"Marcy's views on slavery are almost beside the point. Yes, he was much friendlier to slavery and slaveholders than other northern politicians and constituents. These views were a background condition to the more important feature of his career. Marcy was in the rare position to actively make pro-slavery policy."

The Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association expects name-change discussions to pick up in the new year, in parallel with a fresh push to get more university students engaged in the neighborhood in general as well as encourage older residents to look up something they might not have known about history, Thorstenson said.

Initial feedback to the petition has been mixed. If the neighborhood ultimately decides to change the name of Marcy Park, it would likely lead to a re-examination of the name of Marcy-Holmes itself.

"It depends on what the community wants," said Commissioner Billy Menz, whose district includes Marcy-Holmes and whose daughter was involved in renaming Ramsey Middle School to Justice Page Middle School. "I just think that we don't need to hold on to what we've done in the past. If we really want to work towards an antiracist future, we have to examine these things."

The Park Board's renovations of Marcy Park, which were designed with a focus on a young adult and university student audience, began this summer. They include improved walking trails, a new half basketball court, dog park and updated electrical service.

The Park Board's naming procedure states that after a person or organization nominates a park name, the area's park commissioner, City Council member and all abutting neighborhood organizations would be notified. Two public hearings must be held and a Park Board vote scheduled "no sooner" than two years after the original nomination is submitted.

Naming can be a "long, thoughtful process, including extensive community engagement, to develop a nomination for a new name or to change an existing park name," said park spokeswoman Dawn Sommers. "The MPRB understands there are park names that are problematic and need to change."

Park Board staff have been engaging with the community near Sibley Park for more than a year on renaming that park. Eponym Henry H. Sibley was Minnesota's first governor who negotiated treaties with the Dakota and then fought them after the treaties were broken in the War of 1862, which ended with Sibley approving some 300 death sentences — later reduced to 38.

In 2020, following a years-long fight over changing Lake Calhoun's name to Bde Maka Ska, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled the name change could stand. John C. Calhoun was a 19th vice president from South Carolina and a vociferous white supremacist. Bde Maka Ska was the lake's original Dakota name.