NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — The FDNY on Wednesday announced it will be renaming its highest award for bravery on the job.
The top honor, the James Gordon Bennett Medal, was instituted in 1869 and was named after the founder of the New York Herald. He first gave the award to firefighters who helped save his upstate New York home and the department has given the award to an FDNY member each year since then.
However, the FDNY now says Gordon Bennett held “deeply racist beliefs” and wrote racist and pro-slavery pieces at the paper around the Civil War.
“These views have no place in any society, and I believe we must cease including this individual’s name, and therefore his legacy, in our annual celebration,” FDNY Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro said. “Our highest honor for bravery to a firefighter or fire officer should be named for an individual who swore an oath to serve others, and who once crawled down a hallway like all our firefighters have done to search for New Yorkers trapped by fire.”
The award will now be named for Chief of Department Peter J. Ganci, Jr., the highest-ranking FDNY member to die during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
“Pete was the leader that wouldn’t ask anybody to do something he wouldn’t do, so when he asked you to do something you knew he believed in it,” Nigro said.
Ganci “is still revered by all of us so many years after his death,” the commissioner added.
The FDNY says the name change is not looking to erase history and stressed “it does not discredit the actions, memory, or valor of the 152 members of our department who have been awarded this medal since its inception.”
The department says the change will hopefully “create a better present and future for our FDNY.”