Lafayette Square, Druid Hill Park, and the Masonic Name Game Continues

Lafayette Square Again

On June 22, 2020, protesters defaced the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square, Washington D.C., as they attempted to topple it outside the White House.

The Jackson statue remained on its pedestal. Videos posted on Twitter and other social media showed that the protesters had climbed on the statue and tied ropes around it, then tried to pull it off its pedestal.

When asked about reports of pepper spray being used in Lafayette Park, a National Park Service spokesperson told NBC News: "I am still gathering information, but it is accurate that pepper spray was used to disengage the protesters from the statue and clear the area."

Interior Secretary David L. Bernhardt said in a statement that he had just left the scene at Lafayette Square "where another so called 'peaceful protest' led to destruction tonight. Let me be clear: we will not bow to anarchists. Law and order will prevail, and justice will be served."
Jackson was a Tennessee slaveholder and signed a law that led to the expulsion of Native Americans east of the Mississippi River in which they were forcibly moved west by the federal government. According to the Library of Congress, about 4,000 Cherokees died on the march which became known as the "Trail of Tears."
Trump has previously expressed admiration for Jackson, who was a populist, including during a visit to the Hermitage, the seventh president’s plantation in 2017. According to the Hermitage, Jackson owned about 150 slaves at the time of his death. NBC News.

On the morning of June 23, 2020, President Trump talked about the "attack on the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Square" as he was on his way to board a helicopter to go to Arizona to inspect the "wall." He said he was going to sign an executive order protecting statues and monuments later.

The Fayette Factor - Name Game has been discussed here at the Twilight Language blog often. See here in 2004, here in 2007, here in 2012, here in 2018, and here in 2020.


Druid Hill Park

In Baltimore, on June 21, 2020, a statue and memorial to George Washington in a city park were vandalized with red paint. The Baltimore Sun reports that the memorial in Druid Hill Park in northwest Baltimore also had the words “Destroy Racists” and the initials for the Black Lives Matter movement written on the base.

Druid Hill Park is a 745-acre (3.01 km2) urban park in northwest Baltimore, Maryland. Its boundaries are marked by Druid Park Drive (north), Swann Drive and Reisterstown Road (west and south), and the Jones Falls Expressway / Interstate 83 (east).

Inaugurated in 1860, under the administration of city Mayor Thomas Swann, Druid Hill Park ranks with Central Park (begun in 1858) in New York City, Fairmount Park (1812) in Philadelphia and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco as the oldest landscaped public parks in the United States.

The land was originally part of "Auchentorlie," the estate of Dr George Buchanan (1696–1750), one of the seven commissioners responsible for the 1729 establishment of Baltimore Town, which was laid out by the commissioners the following year. Buchanan's country estate northwest of the town, and on the west bank and overlooking the Jones Falls stream running south to "The Basin" (today's Inner Harbor) of the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River and future Port of Baltimore, included 579 of the 745 acres that comprise Druid Hill Park today. Renamed "Druid Hill" by War of 1812 Colonel Nicholas Rogers (1753-1822), and then his son War of 1812 veteran (September 20, 1788 - November 12, 1860)  who married Eleanor Buchanan, it was purchased in 1860 by the City of Baltimore from family descendant Lloyd Rogers. 

Icons of American Architecture (2009) notes "local dilettante architect Nicholas Rogers—one source hints at a 'Masonic edifice'."

August 4, 1753, George Washington, a young Virginia planter, becomes a Master Mason, the highest basic rank in the secret fraternity of Freemasonry. The ceremony was held at the Masonic Lodge No. 4 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Washington was 21 years old and would soon command his first military operation as a major in the Virginia colonial militia.

A druid was a member of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic cultures. Perhaps best remembered as religious leaders, they were also legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals, and political advisors.

Firework and Sirens

Fireworks are reported going off in cities throughout the USA. Police sirens and ambulances sirens going up and down Harlem's streets in parades at 3 AM. What's going on? (See video here.)

Cities across the US are experiencing a boom in the use of fireworks, with pyrotechnic-related complaints in New York City alone jumping 236 times higher than usual during the first three weeks of June.
Gothamist reported there were 6,385 calls to police about fireworks from 1 to 19 June, compared to 27 in the same period last year.
The New York Times attributed the spike in explosions to, “a release after months of boredom and seclusion in cramped apartments,” as well as “a celebration of hard-fought strides made during the demonstrations, and a show of defiance toward the police.” Other than sparklers, fireworks are illegal in New York.
***
Police in Hartford, Connecticut, who said they had been getting around 200 complaints each day about fireworks, called on people to be mindful of “those with PTSD, babies, children, elderly, & pets”.
Police in Salem, Boston, have started patrolling for fireworks after complaints increased 2,000%, CBS Boston reported.
In Pasadena, California, fireworks-related complaints have increased 400% in June, CBS Los Angeles reported, and last week, the LA County sheriff’s department seized a truckload of illegal fireworks valued at $10,000. The Guardian

For those tempted to connect the fireworks to the protest, Phantom Firework’s sales uptick began two weeks before the May 25 killing of George Floyd.
***
“It’s happening across New York City. It’s happening in California. It’s happening in Illinois. It’s happening in North Carolina, in D.C.,” he says. It “could be a strange coincidence, but I need an explanation.” Source.
***
The author Robert Jones Jr., in a tweet thread that received tens of thousands of retweets, proposed that the fireworks were “a coordinated attack on Black and Brown communities by government forces; an attack meant to disorient and destabilize the #BlackLivesMatter movement,”he wrote.

Eskimo Pie and Flavortown?

Credit...

The George Floyd Protests Continue

Since the coincidental viral sharing of the murder of George Floyd of May 25, 2020, and the History Channel's three-day telecast of Grant beginning on May 25, 2020, much has occurred.

The death of Fayetteville-born George Floyd exposed widespread police brutality in the US. Footage of the tear gassing of peaceful demonstrators in Lafayette Square were shared as hundreds of American cities were rocked by protests, uprisings, and demonstrations.

#BlackLivesMatter, in the wake of Floyd's "I Can't Breathe" killing, was re-born.

Trump's "plan" to hold his first rally in Tulsa was changed, and social change kept happening.

Corporate America, in the wake of their awakenings overnight from June 16 to June 17, 2020, said "Goodbye to Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, Cream of Wheat's Rastus," Mrs. Butterworth's, and more.

Citing the “horrific racist imagery associated with the phrase,” the University of Florida will no longer use the popular “Gator Bait” chant during athletic events, school president Kent Fuchs announced on Thursday, June 18, 2020. There are numerous references that have cited that African American babies were used as alligator bait.

And finally, on June 19, 2020, Dreyer's announced that it would change the "Eskimo Pie" brand name and marketing, saying the term is "derogatory." Eskimo pies were the brand name of a vanilla ice cream product dipped in chocolate. "Eskimo" has been criticized as a racist name for Arctic indigenous peoples such as the Inuit and Yupik.

Statues Topple Around the World

On Sunday, June 7, 2020, slave trader Edward Colston's statue in Bristol, England, was torn down and thrown into the harbor during a second day of anti-racism protests across the UK. Colston was a member of the Royal African Company, which transported about 80,000 men, women and children from Africa to the Americas. On his death in 1721, he bequeathed his wealth to charities and his legacy can still be seen on Bristol's streets, memorials and buildings, the British media noted.

A protester knelt on the neck of the Colston statue to mirror the Floyd murder.

Statues of Confederate generals and soldiers were removed officially or by crowds of activists, coast to coast. Then around the globe, demonstrators and protesters began to take down slavery suppliers, colonial figures, and other statues and monuments representing repression. 

A shift in the US from specifically just Confederate statues to others that stood for colonialism appeared to center on Juneteenth, June 19, 2020. The last most significant demonstration on Juneteenth, was the toppling and symbolic burning of the Albert Pike statue in Washington D.C. Although Pike was a Brigadier General in the Confederacy, and was the only outside statue in D.C. of a Confederate, that statue was not dedicated to his role in the Civil War. Pike as an influential figure in the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, was the reason for the statue. Pike strong ties in the Masonic tradition may have save the statue in the past, but the figure toppled in 15 minutes on Juneteenth 2020.

Running tallies of the "statues across the toppled..." are here, here, here, and here.

Statues fell, flags with Confederate symbols came down, portraits of house speakers who served in the Confederacy were removed from the U.S. Congress. Venerable brands, which have long used labels such as Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s, announced an end to faces on food boxes and bottles that were born in racist stereotypes. Longtime companies that worked with slavers and profited from them, such as Lloyds’ of London, apologized to the Black community and promised to make amends.
Are these moves, prompted by the nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd and so many others, just the leading edge of overdue changes in America and abroad? ~ National Geographic June 22, 2020.

Other statues beyond those of the Confederacy also were toppled.

San Francisco's Christopher Columbus stands near the Coit Tower.

Christopher Columbus statues were beheaded in Boston on June 10.  On June 10, in Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Christopher Columbus was taken down and thrown into a nearby lake. Protesters in Miami vandalized the statues of Christopher Columbus and Juan Ponce de Leon on June 10, spray painting a hammer and sickle, Black Lives Matter fists and more. Miami Police arrested seven suspects. Also on June 10, protesters tore down a statue of Columbus outside the state Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota. In Pittsburgh, a statue of Christopher Columbus was vandalized on June 12. It was reportedly vandalized multiple times before the recent protests. In Providence, Rhode Island, a school teacher and two others were arrested after they allegedly vandalized a statue of Columbus on June 13. California state lawmakers announced on June 17 that statues of Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella would be removed from the Capitol rotunda.

The George Washington statue in Washington Park, Chicago, was found vandalized on June 14. The statue could be seen spray painted, and it had a white hood placed on its head.

In San Francisco's Golden Gate Park along the Pacific Ocean, protesters sprayed red paint and wrote "slave owner" on pedestals before using ropes to bring down the statues and drag them down grassy slopes amid cheers and applause.
The statues targeted included a bust of Ulysses Grant, who was the U.S. president after he was the general who finally beat the Confederates and ended the Civil War.
Protesters pointed out that Grant and his family owned slaves. He married into a slave-owning family, but he had no problem fighting to end slavery. [Left out is that Grant freed his "inherited" due to marriage slave and was raised in an abolition family who disapproved of slavery. Source: Grant History series.]
Also torn down in the San Francisco park was a statue of Francis Scott Key, who wrote the U.S. national anthem "Star Spangled Banner." Key owned slaves. Source.

Other developments

“The world does not need statues, relics of another age, that reflect neither the values of the person they intend to honor nor the values of equality and justice,” said Theodore Roosevelt IV, a great-grandson of the 26th president, said in a statement approving the removal of the Teddy Roosevelt statue in front of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

 According to the New York Times:

The bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt, on horseback and flanked by a Native American man and an African man, which has presided over the entrance to the American Museum of Natural History in New York since 1940, is coming down.
The decision, proposed by the museum and agreed to by New York City, which owns the building and property, came after years of objections from activists and at a time when the killing of George Floyd has initiated an urgent nationwide conversation about racism.
For many, the equestrian statue at the museum’s Central Park West entrance has come to symbolize a painful legacy of colonial expansion and racial discrimination.

Columbus, Ohio's Columbus statue.

According to CNN:

The city of Columbus, Ohio, has already vowed to bring down its statue of Christopher Columbus. 

But thousands are hoping to erase the city's connection to Columbus' legacy even further by renaming it Flavortown in honor of Columbus native Guy Fieri.

This is not a joke.

Food Channel's Guy Fieri

The main proponent of these Columbus moves is 32-year-old Mayor Andrew J. Ginther.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific Northwest, while a Washington statue was pulled down in Portland, Seattle's Lenin statue remains. The Statue of Lenin in Seattle, a 16 ft tall bronze statue of Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, by Bulgarian sculptor Emil Venkov, is the focus of questions about why it still stands.

Uptown Mass Shooting

Solstice was at 4:43 PM (4 + 4 + 3 = 11) Central Time in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, June 20, 2020.

A mass shooting, among other shootings, occurred afterward.

One "237" Shooting

Minneapolis police reported they received 911 calls at 12:37 a.m. on June 21, 2020, reporting several people shot on the 2900 block of Hennepin Avenue South, just north of Lake Street. It’s the commercial center of the Uptown neighborhood, lined with bars, restaurants and retailers.

"Preliminary investigation reveals that individuals on foot started shooting in the mid-2900 block of Hennepin Avenue South and proceeded north. People scattered and suspects fled," police said in a news release issued shortly after 4 a.m.

Photographs posted to social media showed windows at the Landmark Uptown Theatre and another storefront shot out.

Screams were audible on a live video posted to Facebook that showed the aftermath at the scene. Small crowds of people gathered, with some crouched over victims lying on the pavement before police officers on bicycles showed up to attend to them.

There has been a rash of gun violence in Minneapolis in recent days. Police said at least seven other people were wounded by gunfire in the city in five incidents from Saturday afternoon, June 20, 2020, through early Sunday morning, June 21, 2020.

A man was killed in CHOP-Seattle, on Friday, June 19, 2020.

Three people were stabbed to death in a "terrorist incident" at a park in a town just outside London on Saturday, June 20, 2020, police said. Three others were left seriously injured in the attack.

The attack took place in Forbury Gardens, a public park in Reading, a large town around 40 miles west of London, at around 7 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET), Thames Valley Police said in a statement shortly after the incident.

Enki King mentions to me that, "The park, which features a lion statue and a cross memorializing Henry I, had hosted a BLM protest earlier in the day."

History of Uptown

Uptown is a commercial district in southwestern Minneapolis, Minnesota, centered at the Uptown Theater (the former Lagoon) at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and Lagoon Avenue. It has traditionally spanned the corners of four neighborhoods, Lowry Hill East, ECCO, South Uptown and East Isles neighborhoods, within the Calhoun Isles community. Historically, the boundaries of Uptown are Bde Maka Ska to the west, Dupont Avenue to the east, 31st Street to the south, and 28th Street to the north.

Uptown has proven to be a popular destination for those seeking retail, nightlife, and cultural events, and the district was famously written about by recording artist Prince.

Uptown is a youthful fusion of global cuisine, local retail, and lively nightlife with nature rooted just beyond the bustling main intersection. Block by block you'll find multitudes of restaurants, bars and shop there.

As Minneapolis expanded south, housing construction boomed through the 1920s. A commercial district began forming just east of the Lakes Area. At the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and Lagoon Avenue, the Lagoon Theatre was built, a multi-function vaudeville theater. When the Lagoon burnt down in 1939, owners sought to rebuild and the business community took the opportunity to rebrand the area. Following the success of Chicago's Uptown District, the Minneapolis Tribune announced the new Uptown District of Minneapolis centered on the newly renamed Uptown Theatre.

Charlestown and Old Town

I detailed how "Charlestown" and "Charles Town" (= Charleston") are part of the history of June 17th. (See here.)

June 17, 1775.

Lafayette lays the cornerstone at the Bunker Hill Monument, Charlestown, Massachusetts.

June 17, 1825.

Crews in historic Old Town Alexandria quickly removed a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier named "Appomattox" on Tuesday morning, June 2, 2020. The memorial was erected in 1889 to honor Confederate soldiers from the Virginia city and stands with its arms crossed and back to the north. It is one of many controversial Confederate monuments nationwide that have faced repeated demands for removal. (Note the "Prince Street" sign.)

Enki King shared on June 16, 2020, why we might wish to look to "Old Town."

The new rally date of June 20 in Tulsa (original name Tallasi, meaning Old Town) is the summer solstice. On the previous summer solstice, Lil Nas X's first EP featuring "Old Town Road" dropped. This month, a Confederate statue was removed in the Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia; BLM protestor Oluwatoyin Salau was murdered in Tallahassee (also meaning Old Town); and a man was allegedly shot by a vigilante group member during an attempt by protestors to topple a statue in the Old Town section of Albuquerque. I recommend staying away from Tulsa, any other town or neighborhood called Old Town, and even statues on the 20th. (Per comment here.)

Meanwhile,

Johanna Lenski wondered on Facebook if another "active shooter situation" was due on June 20 or June 21, 2020.

One man was shot near the Albuquerque Museum as a protest over the “La Jornada” sculpture in front of the Albuquerque Museum erupted into violence Monday evening, June 15, 2020.

The City of Albuquerque has removed the statue of conquistador Juan de Oñate in Old Town on Tuesday morning, June 16, 2020. On Monday, June 15, a male was shot during a protest for the removal of a statue of Oñate that's located on Mountain and 19th Street. The sculpture sits outside the Albuquerque Museum.

Steven Ray Baca, 31, has been arrested in connection to a shooting of a protester near Old Town on Monday, June 15, 2020, according to Albuquerque Police. Baca has been charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and firearm enhancement. Baca ran for city council on a small government platform last year in District 2, where he lost to Councilor Ike Benton.

The Allegorical Assault on Albert Pike

The last most significant demonstration on Juneteenth, June 19, 2020, was the toppling and symbolic burning of the Albert Pike statue in Washington D.C.

I foresaw this coming. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I am a predictor of human behavior based on social insights and psychological science.

A few in the synchromystic and cryptopolitical fields were able to forecast where the demonstrations might go. Michael Hoffman tweeted about the Pike monument six days ago. He was on-target. Although, according to Adam Parfrey's and Craig Heimbichner's Ritual America, Hoffman may have overstated Pike's "Satanism," as it has much to do with Pike's plagiarism. Hoffman and I disagree about some fundamentals but I listen to intelligent people, even with different bias than mine. We all have them.

Parfrey and Heimbichner did make the point in their book, however, that the usual Masonic pushback against the questioning of Pike's hidden leadership in establishing the Ku Klux Klan is weakened by the fact Pike's daughter shared a photograph of her father in a prominent position of authority for a book on the subject. Also, the KKK was set up, in essence, as a Lodge of Freemasonry, and Pike's involvement in creating it was covert but clear.

The Founders of the KKK. That's Pike in the central position.

Pike did not mince words in his support of slavery and of his negative feelings towards "negroes."

+++

Bill Grimstad and I have written about Albert Pike since 1978. I corresponded with Grimstad as recently as June 18, 2020, wondering aloud about the D.C. statue's probable removal.

Pike Name Game

Albert Pike was a failed Confederate general, a manipulator of Native peoples, pro-slavery, pro-Indian removal, and a supporter of his Native soldiers under his command scalping Union soldiers. There is little that was redeeming in his nature.

Pike went on to be to be elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite's Southern Jurisdiction in 1859. One theory is that the Civil War may have begun as a battle between the northern & southern branches of Freemasonry ~ with the Scottish Rite being the "southern branch."

The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit straightforwardly speaks to the "Pike Name Game."

The Pike section of this book, a difficult tome to find in libraries or via booksellers, begins with these words:

"Pike is a name only slightly less charged with strange significance than Fayette across our land."

© William Grimstad, with permission.

Grimstad is to be credited, besides noting Fayette, with alerting his readers to the "names like Bell, Beall and variants, Crowley, Francis, Grafton, Grubb, Magee/McGee, Mason, McKinney, Montpelier, Parsons, Pike, Shelby, Vernon, Watson/Watt, Williams/Williamson."

In Mysterious America, I talked of the “Name Game” or “Power” monikers of significance: Devil, Fayette, Lafayette, La/Fayetteville, Lagrange, Decatur, Pike, Wetzel, Reeves/Reed, Watts/Watkins/Watson, Bell, Mason/Macon, Parsons, Pike, Vernon, Logan, Shelby, and Warren. Also, I looked at Coleman via Coalman, the Perceivers, of course.

Pike is an English name for one who lived by a hill with a sharp point, from Old English pic “point,” “hill.” Also (1) a predatory fish; (2) a sharp pointed weapon; and (3) short for turnpike.  Pike as a boy's name is of English origin, and the meaning of Pike is "a spear.”

The harmonic naming of the United States of America, from Lafayette locations to Pike places, from Washington wonders to Decatur destinations, are part of Masonic America. The rest of the nation is beginning to be alert to the hidden meaning on the land.


How Quickly It Fell

It appeared various off-the-wall claims were afloat that the Masons were protecting D.C.'s Albert Pike statue. Or that Democratic leaders were looking to take down Confederate statues, but were ignoring the Pike memorial.

Instead, when the time came, events moved quickly.

Friday night, in Judiciary Square, exactly 13 blocks from the Capitol building, a crowd of 80-100 gathered steps away from the D.C. police headquarters, at 11:00 p.m., in front of the Albert Pike statue. Within 15 minutes, the monument was pulled off its pedestal and was on the ground. Demonstrators doused it with lighter fluid, and set it on fire. But since the statue is made of mostly bronze, the flames were more allegorical than damaging. Video.

June 20, 2020

National Mall and Memorial Parks, National Park Service (the caretakers of the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, National Mall sites & more) confirmed to Fox5-DC, they have a truck at the site to remove the toppled Albert Pike statue by 3rd & D Streets NW. It will go to one of their maintenance facilities.

Before June 19, 2020.

Brigadier General Albert Pike was a public artwork in Washington, D.C. honoring Albert Pike (1809–1891), a senior officer of the Confederate States Army as well as a poet, lawyer, soldier, and influential figure in the Scottish Rite of freemasonry. The memorial was sited near the corner of 3rd and D Streets NW in the Judiciary Square neighborhood. The memorial's two bronze figures were sculpted by Gaetano Trentanove, an Italian-American artist responsible for another Washington, D.C. sculptural landmark, the Daniel Webster Memorial. The dedication ceremony in 1901 was attended by thousands of Masons who marched in a celebratory parade.

In 2009, the chapter, "The Double-Headed Phoenix" by Loren Coleman appeared in An Illustrated Guide to The Lost Symbol. (See here.)

The Pike memorial was the only outdoor sculpture in Washington, D.C. honoring a Confederate general. Though Pike was depicted as a Mason, not a soldier, the memorial often stirred controversy. The memorial was one of 18 Civil War monuments in Washington, D.C., which were collectively listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The memorial was owned and maintained by the National Park Service, a federal agency of the Interior Department.

The monument was toppled and burned by protesters on the night of June 19, 2020, as protests continued in response to the killing of George Floyd. Wikipedia. 

Pike's memorial has often stirred controversy throughout its history, beginning with the GAR's lobbying efforts against its erection to protesters arguing it honors a traitor and racist. Starting in the 1990s, there was renewed interest in removing the statue. In late 1992, members of the LaRouche movement, including civil rights activist and Lyndon LaRouche's vice presidential candidate James Bevel, began a series of protests demanding the memorial be removed, citing Pike's alleged links with the KKK. During one such event, LaRouche supporters draped Pike's statue with a KKK pointed hat and gown. Source.

The Future

A realistic view of this one week will see that great cultural change is occurring. The racist underpinning of everything from college football chants ("Gator Bait") to pancake brand names (Aunt Jemima), from Confederate statues to colonial monuments, are toppling in the wake of these events.

Look for the removal of other Confederate Brigadier General and Freemason Albert Pike’s monuments sitting outside in New York and mid-city New Orleans, but it is doubtful that any of his busts inside Masonic temples around the country will be disturbed (on private property).

Black lives matter. And as people look more closely at Pike's history in the future, perhaps, folks will figure out that Native lives matter too. Pike did not really care about America's indigenous peoples any more than he cared about Black ones.

See also:

Pike Name Game Strike Again

Pikes Peak: Masonic Mountain 

George Floyd and the Fayette Factor: Fayetteville to Lafayette Square 

George Floyd: Syncs, Coincidences, and Name Games

The Fayetteville Factor File 

The Name Game: Lincoln

33s: The Rebirth of Pan  

Fayette Factor 

Sirius Rising in the Days of Synchromysticism