Downtown Brooklyn Street Could Be Renamed After Ida B. Wells

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, NY — A Brooklyn street that famed Civil Rights activist and journalist Ida B. Wells lived on for several years could soon bear her name.

Councilman Stephen Levin introduced an application to rename Gold Street, between Myrtle Avenue and Willoughby Street, after Wells to the local community board last week, which was approved by their transportation committee Thursday.

"I think it’s an important commemoration for her contribution to Brooklyn," said Levin. "It’s an important commemoration of the African-American contribution to Downtown Brooklyn. We need to continue to shine the light and commentate it for posterity."

The idea for Gold Street to bear Wells' name came from Jacob Morris, the head of the Harlem Historical Society, as part of his citywide push to honor prominent black New Yorkers by renaming streets after them.

"Brooklyn can be proud for its role in Ida B. Wells' growth and her history," said Morris.

"People don't know that she lived in Brooklyn and they don't know how formative Brooklyn was in influencing her growth as an activist and as a thinker and as a person."

Morris, who's gotten around 40 streets renamed, started to focus on one for Wells in 2014 and submitted an application to Levin's office in 2015. He eventually got support from officials like Borough President Eric Adams.

Wells was born into slavery in Mississippi in 1862 but became free after the Emancipation Proclamation passed a year later, the New York Times reported. She eventually became a journalist and later turned her focus on writing against lynchings while at the "Memphis Free Speech" newspaper she co-owned.

"Her goal was to question a stereotype that was often used to justify lynchings — that black men were rapists," the Times wrote in an obituary for her written this year. "Instead, she found that in two-thirds of mob murders, rape was never an accusation. And she often found evidence of what had actually been a consensual interracial relationship."

Her editorials against lynching caused her offices to be destroyed and one of her partners to be attacked, so while on a national speaking tour she stayed in Brooklyn for several years instead of going back to Memphis, according to PBS.

While living on Gold Street, Wells became mentored by other prominent thinkers in the city — including Dr. Susan Mickinney — which shaped her advocacy, Morris said.

"It led to all of these elite black woman coalescing around Ida and supporting her campaign against lynching," said Morris. "She lived in Brooklyn and she grew in Brooklyn."

She eventually moved to Chicago when she married Ferdinand Barnett in 1895, the Times reported. Wells died from kidney disease in 1931 when she was 68-years-old.

Wells was credited with pioneering reporting techniques still used in today and helping found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), according to the Times.

The proposal to rename Gold Street after Wells needs to be voted on by the full Community Board 2 at their meeting next month and then get final approval by the City Council, Levin said.

The application also calls for a plaque to be constructed on the block to give passersby a brief history about Wells' contributions to American history.

"That's what brings history to life," said Morris.

"They get forgotten but these were great, great people and they did great, great things," he added.

Image: R. Gates/Hulton Archive/Getty Images