The City Council said goodbye Thursday night to a one-time Ku Klux Klan member and welcomed a newcomer to town - famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady.
Over sporadic groans of disappointment and occasional shouts of protest, councilors voted 7-1 to rename Brady Street to M.B. Brady Street and to bestow the section of the street within the Inner Dispersal Loop with the honorary name Reconciliation Way.
That is a reference to the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation.
Council Chairman David Patrick voted against the name change. Councilor Arianna Moore was not present for the vote.
The name change was offered by Councilor Blake Ewing as an amendment to Councilor Jack Henderson's proposal to change the street name to Burlington.
Henderson proposed the name change after council staff discovered a 1907 city ordinance listing "Burlington Street" as the original name. The document had "Burlington" scratched out and "Brady" handwritten in its place.
Ewing said he understood the strong emotions the controversy elicited, but he said Henderson's proposal likely faced defeat - either at the hands of the council or through a mayoral veto - and that that outcome would have left the city worse off.
"We all got to thinking and have tried to come up with something that maybe doesn't please the entirety of our community but hopefully is a first step in advancing, moving out of this, reconciling," he said.
Brady Street is currently named after Wyatt "Tate" Brady, a city founder and one-time Ku Klux Klan member.
Last week councilors postponed a vote on changing the street name to Burlington Street to allow Councilor Phil Lakin to return from vacation after councilors deadlocked on the name change.
Henderson, who moved to postpone the vote, thanked his fellow councilors for their willingness to find common ground.
"I hope that people understand that when you have your back to the wall, sometimes you have to compromise," he said. "We were going to leave here last week with a no vote; we left this week with a yes vote.
"A gentleman got up and said, 'It's still Brady.' But thank God it's not Tate."
Arlene Barnum was one of those who disagreed with the council action, saying councilors had hoodwinked the African-American community.
"It's still Brady no matter which way you cut it," she said. "I think what they should have done is just let the vote just go the way that it was going to go - you vote up or down."
Lakin proposed that if private donors end up paying to change the Brady Street signs, as some have suggested might happen, the city should use the money it would have spent for that purpose to support ONEOK's challenge to raise funds for the Reconciliation Center.
Lakin said the funds would go toward maintenance, curriculum development, the center's reconciliation dinner and its lecture series.
"If we are going to do constructive things, let's focus on things that bring people together," he said.
Patrick told the more than 100 people who attended the meeting that his constituents didn't want the street name changed. And he noted that he was the person who first suggested naming the street after Mathew Brady.
"I don't see the need to put his initials on it," he said, adding, "I would support taking the honorary (name) off of Tate Brady and putting it on Mathew Brady and leaving it straight Brady."
Many in the crowd Thursday stood and applauded when Henderson objected to letting Mayor Dewey Bartlett speak. Patrick overruled him, and Bartlett stood to say the city needed to work toward reconciliation.
"I would have absolutely no problem at all agreeing with this proposal as amended," Bartlett said.
Ewing made a point to directly address the discontented people in the audience, reminding them that what was being proposed was much better than what would have occurred had the Burlington proposal been voted on.
"Let me reiterate: Had we called the vote and voted according to the preset intentions of the council, this would have failed, and tomorrow morning we would have all woken up and this street would have still honored Tate Brady."
Mathew Brady
Born: 1823 in Warren County, N.Y.
Occupation: Photographer. Considered one of the fathers of photojournalism for his studio's graphic pictures of the carnage of the Civil War. Also a portrait artist who photographed naturalist and painter John James Audubon, Dolley Madison and Presidents James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor and a beardless Abraham Lincoln.
Ties to Tulsa: None
Read more about Mathew Brady at
tulsaworld.com/mathewbrady.
Sutton, Smith and Stipe expunged
At least two public landmarks in Tulsa have been renamed because of criminal convictions of their namesakes.
Oilman Robert B. Sutton's name was removed from Tulsa's baseball stadium in 1983 after Sutton was convicted of obstruction of justice. Sutton had pledged $1 million to build a new ballpark at 15th Street and Yale Avenue for the Tulsa Drillers. He failed to fulfill his offer, leaving Tulsa County officials and others to come up with $800,000 to finish the project.
In 1985, Finis Smith Park at 4100 W. 41st St. was renamed at Smith's request. The former state senator and tag agent served a year in prison after being convicted in federal court on 17 counts of mail fraud, tax evasion and concealment of foreign bank accounts. The park is now known as Challenger 7 Park.
And in McAlester, Gene Stipe Boulevard reverted to its original name of Electric Avenue in 2005 after Stipe pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from political campaign violations and resigned from the state Senate.
- FROM STAFF REPORTS
Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313
kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: A new Brady Street
