A newly released app allows users to search for discriminatory roadway names, helping communities grasp the ubiquity of inequalities embedded in everyday spaces and the harm they cause.
My city recently renamed a street after Nelson Hackett, who was a local slave, but more notably, was the first and only escaped slave to have made it to Canada, and then be extradited back to the US. The road was previously named after Archibald Yell, the governor of Arkansas at the time, who wrote the extradition order. Canadian laws at the time forced the government to respect the extradition, but they found this situation so distasteful that they immediately changed the law to basically make Canada a safe haven for escaped slaves.
Lots of locals didn’t know who Archibald Yell was, but now they do, and the road is now named after the slave whose case laid the groundwork for the Underground Railroad because of the governor’s actions.
Not just a correction to the person who should really be celebrated, but also an S-tier snub, if you ask me.
My city recently renamed a street after Nelson Hackett, who was a local slave, but more notably, was the first and only escaped slave to have made it to Canada, and then be extradited back to the US. The road was previously named after Archibald Yell, the governor of Arkansas at the time, who wrote the extradition order. Canadian laws at the time forced the government to respect the extradition, but they found this situation so distasteful that they immediately changed the law to basically make Canada a safe haven for escaped slaves.
Lots of locals didn’t know who Archibald Yell was, but now they do, and the road is now named after the slave whose case laid the groundwork for the Underground Railroad because of the governor’s actions.
Not just a correction to the person who should really be celebrated, but also an S-tier snub, if you ask me.