Thomas Johnson was a Frederick County resident and first Governor of the State of Maryland. He was a prominent businessman who built his enterprise on the backs of slaves. He was one of the largest slave owners in the region, owning several dozen, including some who worked at the Catoctin Furnace creating munitions for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.  When his slaves ran for their freedom, his companies would take out adds in the local newspapers offering bounties for the return of "their property." He treated people like chattel, and the increasing diverse student body of Frederick county deserve better than to be forced to walk under awnings that bears his name in prominence.  

It is time for Frederick to acknowledge its past history as part of a slave state and formally rename both Governor Thomas Johnson Middle and High Schools. Perhaps we could rename the schools after Ulysses Grant Bourne, a black physician who practiced medicine in Frederick in the early 20th Century, founding the Maryland Negro Medical Society, co-founded the Frederick County Branch of the NAACP, became the first black man from Western Maryland to run for a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates, and when Frederick City Hospital (now Frederick Memorial) would not allow him to practice medicine because of the color of his skin he founded his own 15-bed hospital at 30 West All Saints Street that treated both Black and White Patients. 

By signing this petition we are calling on Frederick County Public Schools to take action now to rename these schools after someone we, all the people of Frederick County, can be proud to stand behind.