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SELECTION CRITERIA FOR A SANTOS RODRIGUEZ STREET – Ed Sebesta 7/22/2021
These criteria would apply in general to selecting a street to be named after someone in the advance of social justice, but I am going to write more specifically towards renaming a street for Santos Rodriquez. I think the reader though can see how these criteria might apply to selecting a street in advance of social justice in other efforts. CRITERIA 1. Should not be in a marginal space: Often times a street will be renamed, but it will be in an out of the way place, or some place where the number of people will see it will be limited. This was the case in Dallas where when the Latino community won a contest to rename Industrial Ave., now Riverfront, to César Chávez, they were denied the street and eventually an unimportant and somewhat out of the way street was renamed César Chávez. For the full history with maps how the Latino community was denied you can down load this paper as a PDF at this URL. http://templeofdemocracy.com/struggle-overdallas-street-names.html. It is 85 pages and tells of the struggles to rename streets after civil rights leaders in Dallas from 1980 to 2015. 2. It should not be confined in a minority community: Often when a street is renamed it is a street which is entirely within a minority community as if it was a biohazard of sorts. When they renamed Oakland Ave. to Malcolm X Ave. the resistance was over the section which went into Deep Ellum in a white neighborhood. When you compare the maps of the original proposed street name changes for civil rights leaders with the final location of the streets which were changed, it becomes obvious that the renamed streets are contained like a biohazard. (For César Chávez see page 30, for African American civil rights leaders see page 85 in the paper “Struggle Over Street Name Changes,” accessible online to download at http://templeofdemocracy.com/struggle-over-dallas-street-names.html) The maps on these pages at the end of this document. The new street should be in a location where it will be prominent to the entire community in a highly visible location. Everyone of all backgrounds need to see that this person is being honored and know the history. The message sent by the street name needs to be perceived by the entire community.