Page 1 of 2
March 25, 2021 Edward H. Sebesta XXXXXXXXXXX Dallas, TX XXXXX edwardsebesta@gmail.com Justin Henry President Dallas Independent Board of Trustees Board Services Office 5151 Samuell Blvd. Dallas, TX 75228 Dear Mr. Henry: When the City of Dallas wishes to change a street name, one of the actions done is to contact the property owners of those properties on a street or abut it. For the Lamar Street name change to Botham Jean Blvd., NC190-003, the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) was contacted for the following properties at to whether they supported or opposed renaming South Lamar Street to Botham Jean Boulevard. 1. 3701 South Lamar St. (Now 3701 Botham Jean Blvd.) DISD did not respond to the inquiry. DISD should not only have responded, but they should have supported the name change. Mirabeau B. Lamar was a vicious racist who vigorously supported slavery, led a genocidal campaign against Native Americans in Texas, attempted an invasion of New Mexico, ran ads for runaway slaves in his newspaper in Georgia, was an owner and seller of slaves, made pro-slavery speeches, made racist threats to subjugate Nicaragua, was sympathetic to filibusters against Cuba. A biography is available for download as a PDF at this webpage. http://templeofdemocracy.com/lamar-street-old.html Or you can download it from here: https://issuu.com/edwardh.sebesta/docs/mirabeau_bounaparte_lamar I enclose with this letter a 14-page PowerPoint which gives a good short summary of his numerous crimes against humanity. The streets of a city compose a text of those who were thought to be important in history. The streets of Dallas unfortunately make up a white supremacist text saying that non-whites don’t matter. If non-whites mattered, if their humanity was significant, these street names would be intolerable.
Page 2 of 2
I direct you to this video on YouTube on the Landscape Reparations Channel titled, “Maps Talk.” https://youtu.be/MErB-nKphbE These streets send a message to both white and non-white students about who matters and who doesn’t when a city has streets that make up a white supremacist text. It teaches white students that despite what the slogan of the day might be, what the real attitudes and values of society are towards non-whites and themselves. It teaches nonwhite students that despite what the slogan of the day might be, that society doesn’t value them. I can’t but feel that a student who senses that perhaps they aren’t valued by society could potentially be discouraged from learning. When the students of DISD graduate, white and non-white, they will face a society which also has had communicated to them the message of the white supremacist text of which Dallas city streets make up, and as much as that message is incorporated consciously or unconsciously into the attitudes of that society your students will face a racist society. The policy of DISD should be that they are for the elimination of a racialized landscape that legitimizes racism, whether school names or streets, that DISD is opposed to streets upon which their schools or property site being named after white supremacists. I hope DISD doesn’t fail in the future to take action when there is an inquiry by the City of Dallas to DISD on their opinion about changing a street named after a white supremacist. And I hope that in responding to that inquiry DISD is for changing the name of a street from that of a white supremacist to that of a person that isn’t a white supremacist and further preferably for a person who did something positive for society.
Sincerely Yours,
Edward H. Sebesta
CC: DISD trustees, Dan Miccichie, Edwin Flores, Karla Garcia, Dustin Marshall, Maxie Johnson, Joyce Foreman, Ben Mackey, Miguel Solis.