He’s only one man, but when John Winters told the Park Board it’s time to rename Lake Calhoun, he drew the applause of dozens of attendees of the April 20 meeting.

Lake Calhoun is named after John. C. Calhoun, a former U.S. Senator from South Carolina, Secretary of War and Vice President. Calhoun was also one of the leading pro-slavery voices in the 1800s and historians credit him for helping guide the South toward secession in 1861, though he died 10 years before the Civil War.

“Calhoun was a racist and a liar, and I think it’s a disgrace that the largest lake in Minneapolis is named after him,” Winters said.

Lt. Col. Henry Leavenworth, who came upon the chain of lakes in 1823, named the lake after Calhoun because Calhoun was Leavenworth’s superior officer at the time. A Dakota Sioux tribe had a village on the Southeast shore of the lake, and the tribe called the body of water Mde Medoza, or, “Lake of the Loons.”

Winters said now is the perfect time to change the name of the lake to Lake Humprey. Recently, the airport changed the name of the Humprey Terminal to Terminal 2 and the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome has been tweaked to include Mall of America Field.

Humphrey was also a leading voice for civil rights in the 1960s.

Park Board President John Erwin said this was not the first request to drop the Calhoun name, and he referred Winters to Park Board staff to discuss the idea further.