Street may soon be renamed Barack Obama Boulevard
Just weeks before the United States inducts its newest president, community members behind a three-year effort to name a San Jose street after former President Barack Obama have finally landed on their desired location.
A committee of a dozen community members has applied for a permit from the city to rename portions of Bird Avenue, South Montgomery Street, South Autumn Street and North Autumn Street to Barack Obama Boulevard. The new name would stretch across approximately 4,300 feet of roadway between Interstate 280 and West St John
Street just west of the city’s downtown core.
The proposed Barack Obama Boulevard would run parallel to the Diridon Station and the Guadalupe River, positioned alongside the eastern edge of Google’s planned transit village area and the SAP Center where the San Jose Sharks play.
If the concept is approved by the city council in the coming months, San Jose would join dozens of cities across the country, including Los Angeles, St. Louis and Milpitas, to name a street in honor of the 44th president.
“We think that no matter who you are, what household you were raised in and what race you’re part of, that if you see a symbol of a street named after the first person of color elected president in our county that that sends a symbol of hope and possibility and opportunity for our country,” said Alex Shoor, one of the movers behind the proposal.
The pitch to name a street in San Jose after Obama was launched three years ago by Shoor, a community advocate who helped work on Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. Whether residents agree with his politics or not, Shoor argued that the city should pay tribute to Obama for making history as the first person of color to become president of the United States.
Since then, the group has collected nearly 3,000 signatures in support of the proposal through electronic and paper petitions,
“We should not be spending money on something which is not well-timed.”
— Sarah Ingber, San Jose resident opposed to the move
raised more than $9,000 for implementation costs and garnered approval from city and state elected officials, including San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo.
“I think we’ve had a lot of difficult conversations in this city about statues and streets and schools that are named for people in history that don’t represent our values or aspirations,” Liccardo said in a recent interview. “I believe the better conversation is to talk about what we can collectively embrace as a community that does reflect those values and aspirations.
“P re sident Obama’s name offers a worthy place to start.”
The community group, with the help of city staff, evaluated several streets across the city based on how close they were to the downtown core, how much support or pushback was received from residents and business owners on the street and whether the street “would be worthy of a president” before deciding on the strip of streets chosen, according to Bill Melson, a group member behind the proposal.
During a virtual community meeting this week, Melson said that renaming the streets would “raise San Jose’s national prestige as a city that takes on national interests” and could serve as an inspiring gateway to the new transit center that the city plans to build in place of the current Diridon Station.
Resident Rick Robinson agreed with Melson, saying that the new street name in the heart of Silicon Valley could inspire young Black men and women to aspire to their own successes.
“It could be infectious if we keep the relationships of those types of individuals in our eyesight and not behind our sight,” he said.
But despite some of the support for the renaming, one resident argued during Monday night’s virtual meeting that it could create further divisions in a deeply divided country.
“We have just watched a year of very divisive situations, riots, so on and so I think it’s politically divisive to name any street or schools after past presidents at this past moment,” Sarah Ingber said. “History should be our teacher.”
Ingber also questioned whether money on new street signs could be better spent.
“Money should be spent now on the poor, on hospitals, our caregivers. We should not be spending money on something which is not well-timed,” she said. “This is very badly timed.”
San Jose would not be the first city in the Bay Area or Silicon Valley to name a street after the 44th president. Last year, Milpitas — after some debate about the fact that the street connected to a landfill — agreed to rename a section of Dixon Landing Road to Barack Obama Boulevard.