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This light rail stop in Charlotte will get a new name, CATS says

CATS said the new name honors the legacy of Brooklyn, a predominately Black neighborhood located in Charlotte’s Second Ward.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte Area Transit System announced Wednesday that effective June 30, 2022, the LYNX Stonewall Station will be renamed Brooklyn Village Station.

CATS said the new name honors the legacy of Brooklyn, a predominately Black neighborhood located in Charlotte’s Second Ward.

Back in April, the city of Charlotte announced  Stonewall Street, which runs through the Second Ward in southeast Uptown Charlotte from Interstate 277 to Bank of America Stadium, will be called Brooklyn Village Avenue. 

Earlier this year, the city was collecting public input on new name suggestions.

With the new name, the city commission was looking to honor the legacy of Brooklyn, a predominately Black neighborhood that was home to over a thousand families, 200 businesses and numerous establishments until they were relocated or destroyed by the end of the 1970s, according to a history compiled by UNC Charlotte.

RELATED: City of Charlotte announces new name for Stonewall Street

The neighborhood, most of which had its physical presence destroyed by bulldozers decades ago, has become a symbol of Charlotte's ongoing affordable housing crisis. The decision to destroy the neighborhood, which UNC Charlotte researchers linked back to a 1947 zoning decision by Charlotte's all-white planning commission, also serves as a reminder of discriminatory decisions in the city's history.

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The Legacy Commission, a 15-person committee appointed by the mayor and city council in 2020, has been making changes "reflective of the inclusive vision it strives to achieve" for the city, according to its online mission statement.

"The Legacy Commission believes that the continued memorialization of slave owners, Confederate leaders, and white supremacists on street signs does not reflect the values that Charlotte upholds today and is a direct affront to descendants of the enslaved and oppressed African Americans who labored to build this city," the statement reads.

There are more than 70 city streets in Charlotte that honor slavery, slave owners, Confederate veterans and supporters of white supremacy or romanticized notions of the antebellum South, according to commission documents. Their highest priority went to changing "streets named for leaders of the Confederacy and white supremacists who actively fought to defend slavery and against racial equality," the commission's 2020 recommendations explained.

RELATED: CATS looking for people to design new transit pass

The renaming of Stonewall Street in June will conclude the renaming of the nine prioritized streets. 

Stonewall Street, which runs through what was once Brooklyn, was named for Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, according to commission documents. Another street name for the general, Jackson Avenue, was previously renamed by the commission.

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