by Scott Wartman, [email protected] –
Naming a post office doesn’t seem divisive. But Northern Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Garrison, joined eight other Republican lawmakers in voting against naming a post office in Winston-Salem, N.C., after poet Maya Angelou.
Massie couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The measure passed 371-9 in the U.S. House. One of the other dissenters, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, voted against the measure due to Angelou’s political views, Brooks’ spokeswoman, Lauren Vandiver, told NBC News in a statement.
“While Maya Angelou did many good things in her life, Congressman Mo Brooks (AL-5) did not believe it appropriate to name an American Post Office after a communist sympathizer and thereby honor a person who openly opposed America’s interest by supporting Fidel Castro and his regime of civil rights suppression, torture and murder of freedom-loving Cubans,” Vandiver told NBC in the statement.
The other Republicans who voted against the measure were Reps. Ken Buck, R-Colorado; Michael Burgess, R-Texas; Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.; Glenn Grothman, R-Wisconsin; Andy Harris, R-Md.; Alex Mooney, R-W.V.; and Steven Palazzo, R-Mississippi. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, voted present.
Angelou, who also was a major figure in the Civil Rights movement, died in 2014.