Confederate Street Signs

I never actually lived in Alvin, Texas -  I lived down the road in Liverpool, but I did attend Alvin High School and Jr. College. Once I left, over half a century go, I have hardly ever gone back, so I guess I don’t really have a dog in this fight. 

Still, I read with some interest (and dismay) that Someone has proposed renaming all the streets in Alvin that were named after Confederate leaders.  As a high-school friend posted on Facebook:

I am so fed up with these politically correct Ass Holes. Now there's a group that want to change the names of ten streets in Alvin named after Confederate General's. These are 10 of the main streets in Alvin; Beauregard, Durant, Gordon, Hardie, Hill, Hood, Jackson, Johnson, Lee, and Taylor . Don't these people have anything better to do? They need to climb back under their rocks and leave things alone. This isn't going to change history. It is a part of our heritage. They' re not satisfied the South was defeated and seem to be interested in nothing less than perpetual punishment. I don't know who these people are, but I would be more than surprised if they are native Alvinites.

I was pleased to see that Noel Hankamer (who took the photo at the top of this piece) assured her that even though there was an article in the local paper, the proposal did not have a snowball’s chance of passing a vote by the city council.

Closer to home. (I don’t live in Houston, either) there was a move a couple weeks ago to change the name of Dowling Street which runs through a predominately black area on the east side of downtown Houston.  Controversy sells, so a local TV station sent a reporter to Third Ward to interview residents and black business owners along the street.  They found that most had no idea who the street was named after (Lt. Dick Dowling, who soundly defeated Yankee invaders at the Battle of Sabine Pass) and even after being told, most simply didn’t care.

I won’t even try to list them here, but there are so many serious issues facing society today, I can’t help but wonder what would make anyone pick street names as their cause célèbre. It just doesn’t make sense.