Kshama Sawant voices support for renaming Seattle street named for controversial pro-slavery lawmaker
Oregon s first territorial governor and noted pro-slavery advocate Joseph Lane. (Library of Congress)
Spanning less than a half mile just south of Yesler Terrace in Seattle, South Lane Street seems like an innocuous stretch of road. But as it was recently pointed on social media, the street is named for Joseph Lane, Oregon’s first territorial governor, and a noted pro-slavery advocate whose support of the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War led to an ignoble end to his political career.
While a member of the U.S. Senate, Lane won the vice presidential nomination on behalf of the pro-slavery wing of the Southern Democratic Party in 1860, running alongside Kentucky slaveholder John Breckenridge.