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Letter: How can we move forward when our president honors slave owners?

(Timothy D. Easley | The Associated Press) In a Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2015, file photo, a statue of Jefferson Davis, left, overlooks the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Rotunda of the Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort. A plaque attached to the 15-foot-tall (4.5 meters) marble statue of Davis, declaring him a hero and a patriot, was removed earlier this year.

I went to Jefferson Davis Junior High School, which opened in West Palm Beach, Fla., in 1961. It was at this school that I first heard of President Andrew Jackson’s support of the forced Indian Removal Act of 1830. Even at the age of 13, I knew this was as horrifying as the support of slavery by my school’s namesake. It took until 2006 for the Palm Beach County School Board to consider changing the name of the school.

I am so proud of the Salt Lake City School Board for voting unanimously to change the name of Jackson Elementary and honoring Mary W. Jackson, the first black woman to work as a NASA engineer. But I am appalled by the admiration that Donald Trump has for the former slave-owning president. Trump admires Andrew Jackson so much, he chooses his portrait to hang prominently in the Oval Office — and then chose a location directly in front of that portrait to “honor” Native Americans.

How can we ever move forward when so many people support a president who admires and honors slave owners and those who have no respect for native peoples?

Judy Hinckley, Salt Lake City