Commissioners will make a final vote on the street name changes on Aug. 30. (Image courtesy of The Sun Sentinel).
More than a week after heated protests erupted between Confederate apologists and dissenters outside City Hall, local commissioners in Hollywood, Fla., have agreed to begin the process of renaming streets honoring three Civil War-era generals.
The Hollywood City Commission voted 5-2 Monday, July 3, to rename Lee Street, named after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee; Hood Street, named after Gen. John Bell Hood, and Forrest Street, named after Confederate general and inaugural Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Associated Press reported.
“It is time to change the names and the time is now,” Commissioner Debra Case said at the nearly three-hour meeting. “We must do the right thing and we must do it now.”
Hollywood is the latest U.S. city to rid itself of streets, statues and monuments honoring Confederate generals. In May, the city of New Orleans finished dismantling four of its own Civil War monuments.
The city’s current plan calls for Forrest Street to become Savannah Street, Hood Street to become Macon and Lee to be renamed Louisville, according to the Sun Sentinel. The paper noted that while all three streets extend through the entire city, two of them — Forrest and Hood — run through a predominately Black, Liberian neighborhood.
“It is not right that an African-American mother has to tell her child she lives on a street named after someone that wanted them in chains or dead,” local public defender Howard Finkelstein argued.
State Rep. Shevrin Jones, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel and Broward Property Appraiser Marty Kiar were among other officials calling for change, according to the newspaper.
Monday’s vote isn’t the final nail in the coffin, however. The Sun Sentinel reported that commissioners will come back for a final vote on Aug. 30.
