Rep. Gerry Connolly Is Pushing For The FBI Headquarters To Remove J. Edgar Hoover’s Name: ‘He Was A Racist Who Went After Martin Luther King In Extraordinary Ways’

Rep. Gerry Connolly is fighting to get the FBI headquarters renamed because J. Edgar Hoover was a racist and a misogynist.

According to Business Insider, Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia said on Saturday that he wants the FBI headquarters building in Washington, D.C. to have Hoover’s name removed from it, highlighting Hoover’s racist and misogynistic behavior.

“I introduced [legislation] to form a national commission to rename the J. Edgar Hoover headquarters building,” Connolly said on MSNBC’s “The Cross Connection.” “We need to do this because frankly, J. Edgar Hoover was a maligned character in American history.” He says the building should be named “after somebody who deserves it.”

“I introduced [legislation] to form a national commission to rename the J. Edgar Hoover headquarters building,” he said on the show. “We need to do this because frankly, J. Edgar Hoover was a maligned character in American history.”

“He was a racist who went after Martin Luther King in extraordinary ways. He was a homophobe. He was a misogynist,” Connolly continued. “He was somebody who even denied the existence of the mafia for decades, allowing organized crime to get a toehold here in the United States.”

Hoover was well-known as the leader behind the takedown of Dr. Martin Luther King and the spearhead behind the killing of two Black Panthers, Fred Hampton and Mark Clay. “Hoover abused his power and trampled the civil liberties of Dr. King, anti-war protesters, his political rivals, and too many others,” Connolly said. “He is no role model for any time, and certainly not this one. Congress must right this wrong and rename this building.”