Alderman Lamont J. Robinson, Alderman for Chicago’s 4th Ward, has introduced an ordinance to the City Council Committee on Transportation and Public Way calling for Columbus Drive to be renamed Barack Obama Drive after the former President.
It comes a few years on from the last significant name change when the outer portion of Lake Sure Drive officially became recognized as Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable Lake Shore Drive in honor Chicago’s Haitian founder and first non-Indigenous settler.
Now, Robinson’s proposal would see the entirety of Columbus Drive remove all association with the 15th-century explorer and instead name it in honor of the first Black president of the United States who got his start in politics here in Chicago.
“We need to honor more Black men, and this is one small way we can do that” Robinson expressed on X, formerly Twitter. “Chicago’s children deserve to see that they too can become Black history & cement a new tourist destination to increase Chicago tourism highlighting where Black history was made.”
Columbus Drive stretches roughly 1.8 miles from East Grand Avenue in Streeterville past Grant Park where Barack Obama gave his victory speech in 2008 and through the Loop to Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable Lake Shore Drive.
First known as the Inner Drive, it was renamed after Christopher Columbus in 1933.
The famed Italian explorer, however, is now widely considered a controversial figure and has fallen out of favor across the country due to his colonialism and treatment of indigenous populations.
In 2020 then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot called for 3 Columbus monuments to be taken down across Chicago and the following year President Joe Biden acknowledged Indigenous Peoples’ Day at federal level.
For many the second Monday in October now recognizes the victims of colonialism rather than the controversial explorer.
The proposal has been backed by other Aldermen and Alderwomen such as Pat Dowell (3rd), Desmon Yancy (5th), Jeanette Taylor (20th), Walter Burnett Jr. (27th), Angela Clay (46th), Matt Martin (47th), and Maria Hadden (49th) but it will need to first be considered by the Transportation Committee before it goes to a full City Council for a final vote.
[Featured image from Pexels]