The city council in Tulsa, Oklahoma decided on Thursday to change who Brady Street honors. It was originally named for a businessman who was in the KKK, but it will now honor the influential Civil War photographer Mathew Brady.
The Associated Press reports that the street was first named for Wyatt Tate Brady, who was a member of the KKK. But in a 7-1 vote on Thursday, that changed. It now honors Matthew Brady, the 19th century photographer best known for his graphic images of the Civil War.
The council also agreed to put up “Reconciliation Way” signs around the Brady Arts District, which has become a successful area of the city.
“The Brady name has never been a problem with people that came to me, it was the racist information that we heard about Tate Brady, so to take that off and put somebody else's name on there, it could be Voo Doo Brady, I don't care, but it ain't Tate,” Tulsa city councilor Jack Henderson told KTUL. He said that “MB” will also be added to the street signs so people no longer confuse the street name with Wyatt Tate Brady.
KTUL noted that some thought that the compromise was a defeat, since it’s still a “Brady.” “I think it's superficial. I think it's still holding on to Mr. Brady,” one woman told the station.
Wyatt Tate Brady was a successful businessman in Tulsa, started a newspaper and promoted the city around the country. But he was the son of a Confederate soldier and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Activists began a movement to get the street renamed in 2011 after a magazine article linked him to a 1921 riot that decimated the Black Wall Street district.