Boston City Council to debate changing name of Faneuil Hall over ties to slavery
BOSTON – A Boston City Council member is trying to change the name of Faneuil Hall over its ties to slavery.
Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson called the name an "anti-Black symbol" because Faneuil Hall is named after a white supremacist and a slave trader.
Anderson also wants to build a memorial to the victims of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the area.
The city council will debate the resolution on Wednesday.
Faneuil Hall, a popular tourist destination, is named after Peter Faneuil, a Boston merchant who made his fortune by buying and selling enslaved people.
Various groups have called for Faneuil Hall's name to be changed in recent years.
In June, a new exhibit on slavery opened at Faneuil Hall and was met with protesters calling for it to be postponed until the name was changed.
At that time, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said the building has deep ties to the city and that history should not be erased.
"This building is on many, many national historic lists. The simple conversation about changing the name, we can have that conversation in the context of the larger work we have to do as a community," Wu said in June.
In 2022, three Boston ministers chained themselves to the front doors of Faneuil Hall, demanding the city change the name of the historical landmark.
"This iconic building bears a slave trader's name, an anti-Black symbol that burdens us," Rev. John Gibbons of Arlington Street Church in Boston said. "This place is named for Peter Faneuil. An enslaver. A slave owner and slave trader."
