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Why Change Ervay to Harvey Milk St. There are five primary reasons to change Ervay St. to Harvey Milk St.
1. Ervay Biography: Henry Ervay for whom Ervay St. was named after, was a solider in the invasion of Nicaragua to make it a slave state, was a Confederate officer, and was instrumental in restoring white supremacy to Dallas and the overthrowing the multi-racial democracy of Reconstruction. It is a street name that is undesirable and has to go. 2. Not Stuck Off in a Corner: We don’t want a Harvey Milk Street stuck off in a corner where no one will see it. We don’t want it contained in a LGBT neighborhood isolated like a biohazard. We want it to be a prominent street where it will be seen by the public at large and prominent enough such that it isn’t a token statement told to a small geographically cloistered audience, but a powerful statement said to the general public and also the powerful leaders in Dallas society. 3. Currently No LGBT St.: There is no street named after a LGBT civil rights hero in Dallas. Renaming a street after Harvey Milk would make a definitive statement that the City of Dallas is committed to LGBT civil rights and rejects homophobia.
4. Powerful Symbol: Harvey Milk is a national hero and a major figure in LGBT history in the United States. There is a 2008 movie “Milk” and the 1984 “The Times of Harvey Milk” which will ensure that it is a name that will be recognizable to the public as a LGBT civil rights hero for generations to come. From San Francisco, to Paris, France, to San Diego and Portland, many cities have already named streets and public squares after Harvey Milk. 5. First Baptist Dallas Church: It will be an ongoing rebuke to a church that has poisoned Dallas life and the life of our nation for decades, even generations going back until the infamous W.A. Criswell speech for segregation in 1956, Criswell’s bigoted homophobic sermons using the term sodomy in the 1980s. Criswell’s infamous anti-Catholic speech attacking presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in 1960. There is the current Christian nationalist theocratic agenda of Robert Jeffress today. A Harvey Milk St. would be a powerful repudiation by the City of Dallas of the ongoing poisonous agenda of First Baptist Dallas Church and a statement that their values are not the values of the City of Dallas.
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OTHER ISSUES: 1. Local vs. National: 1.1. There are many other streets that should be renamed in the City of Dallas and could be renamed spread across the city of Dallas and in particular in the Cedar Springs area, which was developed by developers Bowser and Lemmon, both Confederates and Bowser was a Ku Klux Klan member also. If someone has someone who is serious about renaming a street for a local LGBT hero, many possible candidate streets can be proposed. Ed Sebesta has an Excel sheet of them. 1.2. The City of Dallas has streets honoring people who are state wide or national figures who never set foot in Dallas. 2. City Ordinance on Street Names: Though the ordinance which I have studied and reviewed might seem daunting, once they have decided to change a street, they find a way. Three other things need to be considered. 2.1. The ordinance on street name changes can itself be changed by a simple majority. The whole issue of super majorities can be side-stepped. 2.2. The requirements that were passed in the 1990s had been proposed in the 1980s and had been specifically denounced by 1980s Dallas civil rights hero Elsie Faye Heggins. She can be cited. 2.3. It is fairly obvious that the ordinance with its supermajorities is in direct violation of the historic 14:1 Federal Court decision in 1990 ruling that at-large districts in Dallas to be in violation of the civil rights of African Americans and Latinos. It is an obvious backdoor method to establish a system that functions like an at-large districts did to violate civil rights. I will be writing up something on this.