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New names could be drawn from an inventory developed by the Historic Alexandria Assets Fee that would come with individuals and locations thought of to be “worthy of honor” by the town. The memo instructs the fee to emphasise honoring ladies and minorities and to contemplate beforehand retired road names.
Many road names in Alexandria “have been designed as a type of everlasting protest towards the civil rights motion and rising political energy for African Individuals in our metropolis,” Wilson mentioned on the council assembly Tuesday night time. “These honors haven't any place in 2023.”
All different Metropolis Council members expressed assist for the thought through the assembly.
Though Alexandria, the previous residence of a younger Robert E. Lee, boasts no scarcity of Civil Warfare iconography, many of the metropolis’s Accomplice streets didn't exist till halfway by final century.
Native planning officers wrote it into metropolis code in 1951 that every one new north-south streets must be named after Accomplice army officers, in a transfer many say was meant to maintain the “Misplaced Trigger” alive.
Alexandria lawmakers launched a pilot program in 2021 that made it simpler to rename these streets by petition. It required 25 % of property house owners on a given road to assist the change earlier than it will be taken to Metropolis Corridor for a vote.
However that didn’t essentially imply it was achievable, particularly in an space that often flew the Accomplice flag as lately as 2015.
A tiny group of activists, Reconstruction Alexandria, encountered skepticism, in addition to some outright opposition, as members went door to door because the pilot launched to gather signatures on Floyd and Lee streets and Janneys Lane.
Alex Sprague, one of many group’s members, mentioned they at most had gotten just a few dozen signatures.
Wilson mentioned he put forth the memo, as a result of anticipating residents to gather signatures had created a gradual, disjointed course of. His proposal would extra intentionally and deliberately facilitate the renaming over time, he added.
It could be more cost effective, too. In response to a funds request from Councilmember Canek Aguirre (D), metropolis officers estimated that it will value about $820,000 to rename all 41 streets individually, although that determine drops to $226,000 if 5 are renamed at a time.
If Wilson’s memo is accepted as a part of the town funds, the sources fee could be instructed to develop the listing of potential new names in session with metropolis historians. The Metropolis Council’s Naming Committee would select three streets to be renamed a 12 months.
Its choices wouldn't be restricted to Accomplice leaders. Wilson’s memo additionally took objection with a road within the metropolis’s West Finish named after Roger B. Taney, the previous U.S. Supreme Courtroom chief justice who wrote the bulk opinion defending slavery in Dred Scott v. Sandford.
Along with the 41 streets confirmed to be honoring Confederates, metropolis historians have mentioned they're trying into at the least 27 others which will have related origin tales.
Metropolis Supervisor James Parajon is ready to current his funds to Metropolis Council on Feb. 28, for a closing vote in Could.
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