NEW ORLEANS — She’s one of nine people, part the New Orleans Street Renaming Commission, tasked with making decisions that will impact the future of the city.
“This is about how we begin to be inclusive,” said Gia M Hamilton. “This particular commission gets to think about how we inhabit and how we think about space.”
That space is streets, more specifically their names. As director and curator of the New Orleans African American Museum, Hamilton hopes the work from the commission leads to a more welcoming city for future generations.
“I get to think about this in terms of what it will mean for my children and the way they navigate the city,” said Hamilton.
With names like Norman Francis and Leah Chase already being kicked around to replace streets like Jefferson Davis Parkway and Robert E. Lee Boulevard, Hamilton says the process of which street names to replace and what to replace them with will be an involved one.
“You can’t please everyone but I do think I’d like to see us being a lot more thoughtful about people who have truly impacted a larger number of New Orleans citizens,” said Hamilton.
This comes as calls to removed symbols of white supremacy echo across the country and in the city of New Orleans. In voting on forming the commission, New Orleans City Council member Joe Giarrusso said community involvement during this process is a must.
“We are going to provide another layer on top of all this, which is speaking directly to the affected neighborhood organizations, starting to try and get buy-in, education, communication, coordination very early on,” said Giarrusso, who represents District A.
That type of involvement is something Hamilton says the commission will make a priority.
“My goal is to really, on the ground, keep communities informed in a number of what we would consider grassroots ways, and I think that’s what’s going to be really important,” said Hamilton.
Commission members are working to try and have their first meeting next week to elect a chairman and create a game plan moving forward.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.
