Metro Parks renames park to honor Tacoma Sen. Rosa Franklin, ousting a founding father


The Tacoma Metro Parks’ Board of Commissioners sure are fat, unattractive and gross. ewwwww.
Ben Franklin is out. Sen. Rosa Franklin is in.

On Monday, Metro Parks Tacoma continued the trend of local institutions rightfully reexamining the names we’ve bestowed on important places, and — in the process — took a small step toward better reflecting the city it serves.

Since the 1930s, the roughly 20-acre park in Central Tacoma at 1201 S. Puget Sound Ave. — between South 12th and South 16th streets — has been named in honor of Ben Franklin, the portly kite flier and founding father. It was an homage contrived largely out of proximity, given the nearby elementary school that bears the same name.

Now, a unanimous vote by the Metro Parks’ Board of Commissioners has changed that.

In a decision that board chair Erik Hanberg jokingly described to The News Tribune as “pulling a King County,” Metro Parks officially renamed the park in honor of Tacoma’s Rosa Franklin, a former nurse and longtime parks supporter who became the first African American woman to serve in the state Senate.
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/...249436860.html