Hollywood votes to strip
the names of Robert E. Lee and two other Confederate generals from its streets.
HOLLYWOOD — This South Florida city voted late Wednesday to strip the names of Robert E. Lee and two other Confederate generals from its streets, the latest in a series of skirmishes over Civil War remembrances.
The Hollywood City Commission voted 5-1 to remove the names of Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Bell Hood from streets in the Fort Lauderdale suburb. More than 200 supporters and opponents of the change packed the commission chamber and the adjoining lobby, with most of the mostly 100 speakers generally spirited but polite.
Mayor Josh Levy, who voted for the change, said he hoped it would bring the community together by showing a “spirit of companionship” that recognizes that many black residents were offended by these names.
“These streets are symbols of men whose deeds symbolized oppression and bigotry against a whole group of people,” he said. Five of the commission’s six white members voted for the change.
The one Hispanic, Peter Hernandez, walked out of the meeting before the vote in a protest over procedure. Before he left, he said he opposed the change because the commission had not followed its rules and he thought there would be a push to change other street names.
He also said the change was “a Democratic national agenda that is being pushed upon us.”
The commission will vote to rename the streets at a later meeting. The members indicated they will likely rename Forrest Street for Frankie Mae Shivers, a black, female city police officer who was fatally shot in 1982.
The change was supported by the city’s Chamber of Commerce and by more than half of the meeting’s speakers.
Benjamin Israel, a black resident who was one of the early leaders to change the street names, said the idea that residents would be “inconvenienced” by the name changes was “ridiculous.”
“Think of the inconvenience of the Civil War. Over 600,000 were killed. This will help make a better America,” he said. “This is not a racial matter. Most of the people killed in the Civil War were white.”
Opponents argued that stripping the names of Lee, Hood and Forrest will be erasing history.
John Jacobs of the group “Save Our Streets,” which opposed the change, said the commission trampled on residents’ rights when the members waived a city ordinance that says affected property owners need to be polled before a street name can be changed, knowing there would be little support.
He said change supporters “waged a propaganda campaign by making outlandish and false accusations” against the generals. Lee, he said, didn’t fight to support slavery but to uphold his home state of Virginia’s right to secede.
“These were not treasonous men,” Jacobs said. “They were 19th century men and shouldn’t be judged by 21st century standards.”