The current renaming debates echo a fight that led to the 2017 removal of four monuments honoring the Battle of Liberty Place, P.G.T Beauregard, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee.
While Bryant said the Archives staff helped assist individuals and groups to conduct research during that process, she said their involvement this time around is much more hands-on. In fact, to her knowledge, Bryant said this is the first time the Archives staff has played this integral of a role within a City project.
But, she said she hopes it will not be the last.
“I feel like this is a big deal, and I hope in the future it produces more of this type of collaboration,” she said.
All three researchers said they are proud to be involved in this project and firmly believe their work will result in a more fair and facts-based process of renaming these streets and parks.
“It’s exciting and fulfilling to be using our expertise and the profession that we are trained in to contribute to this specific initiative, in a way that grounds it in the archival profession,” Silva said. “By forming the commission and relying on professional researchers to provide the basis of the argument, it gives transparency and a foundation to the discussion that City Council can have with the community.”
In their research, the Archives team has found that through much of history, the naming of streets was not a public issue, but rather was done behind closed doors by a select group of people who had access to land, money, or politics.
That, Mullins said, will not be the case this time around.
“Already, just by us doing this research, is making it a much more democratic, much more discursive process,” he said. “There’s actually going to be public input this time, and there already has been. This wouldn’t have started without public input.”
The commission recently published a form for the public to submit suggestions for new street names, further elevating that public input.
As representatives of a public library and municipal archive, the researchers are dedicated to presenting an impartial report, which they say will give more validity to the decision, regardless of the outcome.
“It shows that the choice is grounded in facts rather than someone’s opinion,” Silva said.
Mullins and Silva submitted their report to the New Orleans Street Renaming Commission Wednesday (Aug. 19), which includes a total of 25 streets and three parks their research shows are named for people, organizations, or events with Confederate ties.
The final decision whether or not to rename streets will be in the hands of City Council, after the Street Renaming Commission reviews Silva and Mullins’ report and drafts an official list of streets and parks to be addressed.
“We’re going to put this information out there, and it’s for anybody to use. We can’t instruct personal opinion, but as part of our purpose and our ethics, we need to present the fullest picture out there,” Bryant said.
To learn more about the Louisiana Division/City Archives & Special Collections and how to use them, visit archives.nolalibrary.org. Read the full report here.
The Archives team would like to thank the Historic New Orleans Collection and Tulane University Special Collections for assisting them in their research.