A Republican-backed invoice seeks to rename a part of a Tennessee side road devoted to Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the overdue civil rights chief, as a way to “honor” former President Donald Trump.
The invoice, subsidized via Tennessee state Rep. Paul Sherrell (R) and state Sen. Frank Niceley (R), would rename a portion of Nashville’s 5th Street that have been named after Lewis. The segment is between James Robertson Throughway and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street.
The regulation, which requires the stretch to be known as President Donald Trump Street, comes not up to 3 years after Trump insisted that he hardly ever knew who Lewis used to be and that he couldn’t say “someway” if he discovered him spectacular.
Lewis’ lunch counter sit-ins happened alongside 5th Street all the way through the civil rights motion, The Tennessean famous, and Nashville’s Metro Council renamed a part of the road to acknowledge him following his loss of life in 2020.
The alternate may give Tennessee’s state legislative place of job construction a President Donald Trump Street cope with, consistent with the newspaper.
Metro Council member Zulfat Suara (D), a mom and group organizer, puzzled what her state has change into in a tweet in regards to the invoice on Thursday.
“This isn’t learn how to govern. That is ridiculous. We’re going to battle this. #GoodTrouble,” wrote Suara, quoting Lewis’ well-known phrases on activism, and she or he famous the “merciless” timing of the invoice as Black Historical past Month starts.
Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones (D) additionally criticized the proposed renaming and wrote on Twitter that the invoice used to be “about greater than a side road identify.”
“It’s but any other white supremacist assault on Black historical past,” Jones wrote.
“It’s spitting at the grave of our ancestor. It’s memorializing hate. Best possible imagine, we’ll battle again.”
The invoice may additionally take away streets from the checklist of items that may be safe as “memorials” beneath Tennessee legislation, consistent with WKRN-TV.
HuffPost has reached out to Sherrell and Niceley for remark.