Why don't cities change controversial street names? UT study says it's about convenience, economics

Two University of Tennessee researchers have spent the last two years looking at how governments handle requests to rename streets that honor white supremacists and other controversial figures. 

Geography professor Derek Alderman and geography Ph.D. candidate Jordan Brasher found that cities can tend to prioritize practicality and economic development over acknowledging sometimes painful pasts. Alderman said this can include streets or areas named for white supremacists or nationalists, Ku Klux Klan members, Confederate generals and slave owners. 

Brasher and Alderman studied a street renaming in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that sparked controversy for the bulk of their research paper. 

The street in Tulsa was originally named Brady Street after Tate Brady, a Ku Klux Klan leader and participant in the 1921 Tulsa race riots that targeted African-American residents and property. The riots caused over $1.5 million in damage at the time, which equates to approximately $20 million today, Alderman said. More than 800 people were injured and 36 people were killed in the riots.

Cities often value convenience over justice

In 2013, the street was renamed M.B. Brady Street after a Civil War photographer with the same last name but no ties to the city. M.B. Brady Street was also designated as Reconciliation Way. Alderman called this a "faux renaming," because it was still Brady Street and said it did not help the city reconcile with their past. 

"The city of Tulsa, and I would suggest communities around the United States, really often value practicality and the convenience over doing justice in a commemorative sense," Alderman said. 

Alderman said in their research, they found that cities "don't want to inconvenience or disrupt business," which can delay the renaming process or affect the names chosen. 

"It's not just the obstacles posed by white nationalists or the KKK or the obstacles posed by people who want to protect their heritage, it's also just the way cities tend to put economic development and convenience and practicality over really repairing the wounds and really trying to do justice," Alderman said. 

Since 2013, M.B. Brady Street has now officially been renamed Reconciliation Way. 

Renamings as 'opportunities for healing'

Alderman and Brasher, who have also studied how college and university campuses name streets and buildings, both said cities need to establish a formal process for evaluating street names and the naming process. 

"I'd like to see city officials treat these renamings as legitimate political opportunities for healing, reparation, and reconciliation (if only symbolically and not materially) instead of deriding or dismissing them as 'political correctness out of control,'" Brasher said in an email. "Activists have for a long time seen street names as legitimate political arenas for affecting change and city officials should treat them as such."

Brasher said he thought it was "very effective for cities to rename the places entirely to commemorate underrepresented black women who’ve contributed to a city or campus’ local history in forgotten or yet-uncommemorated ways." 

"It helps create a sense of place for underrepresented minority groups, maintains a historical element, but does not try to hang on to or implicitly valorize the white supremacist parts of our history," Brasher said. 

Alderman said increased public participation and more of a public process in selecting street names could help cities be more proactive instead of reactive. 

"Most of the time, cities really only respond to the public when the public protests, when the public really requests and pushes the issue," Alderman said. "I would think that it would be better not just to be reactive but to be proactive."

Brasher said street renamings can potentially "offer healing and repair to parts of our cities and communities that have long been wounded, neglected and marginalized." Alderman said renaming a street is one step in embracing diversity and acknowledging parts of history that may have been forgotten.

"Our major argument is we've got to pay attention to how we elevate practicality over commemorative reform and doing justice to marginalized communities," Alderman said. "And really, making sure we don't elevate economic development over these very painful memories. Jobs are important, but it's also important to remember the past in the way it happened."