By Associated Press - Thursday, July 13, 2017

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - An annual fundraiser will no longer be named after Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson as Louisiana’s Democratic Party joins its counterparts in other states in distancing itself from the two slave-owning presidents.

The Advocate reports the party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, scheduled in New Orleans on Aug. 26, will instead be called the True Blue Gala.

The state Democratic Party said its chairwoman, state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, announced in the fall the event would be rebranded “to reflect the progress of the party and the changing times.” The party said it settled on the new name after internal surveys and conversations with Democrats in Louisiana.

“We believe this will allow us to not only focus on keynote speakers but also award recipients,” the party said in a statement.

The party’s announcement that it would drop the Jefferson and Jackson names from the dinner came after several states, including Arkansas, Georgia, Missouri and Connecticut made similar moves.

Jefferson and Jackson are considered founders of the Democratic Party, but their ownership of slaves has drawn increased scrutiny. Jackson also signed the Indian Removal Act that led to the forced removal of Native Americans from their lands in what became known as the Trail of Tears.

State Democratic parties’ efforts to distance themselves from the two presidents are part of a wider re-evaluation of names and symbols linked to slavery and the Confederacy that followed the 2015 shooting deaths of nine black churchgoers by a white supremacist gunman in South Carolina. New Orleans this year removed four monuments honoring the Civil War and white supremacy.

Louisiana’s annual “J-J dinner” typically draws hundreds of Democrats from across the state and is the Louisiana Democratic Party’s largest fundraiser. Tickets are $175 apiece.

Jason Kander, who is seen as a rising star in the national Democratic Party despite losing a U.S. Senate race in Missouri last year, will be the featured guest when Louisiana Democrats hold the first True Blue Gala next month.

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