VALDOSTA – July 22 was a day to celebrate for David Jonathan “D.J.” Davis and his group, the Action Sociology Anthropology Club at Valdosta State University.

Valdosta City Council approved the request to change the name of Forrest Street to Barack Obama Boulevard in a 6-1 vote.

Officially, the name change will occur 90 days from the vote as per the ordinance, Patrick Collins, city engineering director, said.

“We have 15 days to get letters out to folks, asking them to change their names (and) telling them what has happened,” Collins said.

Collins said he and the city engineering department started compiling the letters Monday. City engineering will also create and get the street signs ready for placement when the 90 days are up.

According to the United States Postal Service, there’s a $1.05 fee for identity verification to prevent fraud and change an address online. All they’ll need is a debit/credit card and a valid email address.

People can also visit their local post office, ask for a mover’s guide packet and use the PS Form 3575 to change their address. Once submitted, the applicant will receive a confirmation letter within five business days.

According to the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicles, everyone is allowed one free name or address change during the term of their original driver’s license/permit/ID card.

All other changes will incur a fee.

People can change their address via the DMV website, dds.georgia.gov, or the DDS 2 Go mobile app.

Changes can be made in person at a DMV Center. Still, the person must bring either one “real ID license” or two “real ID documents” (U.S. or amended birth certificate, U.S. passport or passport card, consular report of birth abroad, certificate of naturalization, or certificate of citizenship).

During the City Council meeting last week, Mayor Scott James Matheson, noting Davis’ heavy involvement in the process of getting Forrest Street’s name change, said Davis would need to help guide residents in changing their addresses.

Davis said he’d already planned to do so. Council approved the name change, followed by a standing ovation City Council chambers.

Davis thanked the overwhelming amount of support he and ACTION gained to get the street name changed — at least 172 residents given the signatures acquired — but he also thanked the City Council for passing the change.

The vote was one made with long-standing city policy in mind, but it was a vote made with intention — one made without the thought of “let’s just get this off our plates,” he said.

Discussion about the vote took place before it.

District 1 City Councilwoman Vivian Miller-Cody said it was an honor to make the motion to approve the name change.

For District 6 Councilman Andy Gibbs, it was his duty to raise a point: Forrest Street wasn’t named after Ku Klux Klan leader and Civil War Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, he said.

Instead, he argued it was named for the Rev. Elbert Forrest, the Black founder of First Antioch Baptist Church.

He performed missionary duties, preached sermons, attended a prayer meeting, and married the sick, Gibbs said, all during “terrible times” — the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“But despite those times, he decided that his life meant reaching others and making an impact,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs motioned to table the name change request to take a closer look at Forrest Street’s history. Other council members disagreed, leading to no seconds to the motion.

City Councilman-At-Large Ben Norton said while it was unfortunate that Gibbs’ information did not come up before the meeting, “every I was dotted, and every T was crossed.”

“We have approved the renaming of many streets in honor and memory of many people, local and otherwise,” Norton said. “Because of that, the due diligence has been done.”

In the wake of Gibbs’ failed motion, District 4 Councilman Eric Howard commended him for providing the information on Elbert Forrest; however, with the information Gibbs gave, Howard pointed out that Elbert lived on Oak Street.

If that’s the case, then this would be the perfect opportunity to rename Oak Street after him.

Since the Forrest Street name change petition met city requirements, who the street is named after is irrelevant, Howard said. The opportunity to bring up Elbert Forrest’s history would have been in 2018 during the petition’s initial inception.

Howard said he’d like to propose something to the mayor and City Council to make the petition for a street name change much simpler.

“We could change our ordinance, or we can say no street, no building, no alley, no anything in the City of Valdosta will be named after any terrorist (foreign or domestic), any Nazi sympathizer, any Holocaust denier — anything like that,” Howard said.

The city has the opportunity to let people know that Valdosta is not like other cities in other states, he said.

“To name a street right now after Barack Obama,” Howard said, “it would mean a lot to the same people that have been marginalized in this city for so long.”

He said he hasn’t lived in Valdosta his whole life but he knows Black people weren’t even allowed to live on that street at one point; Miller-Cody attested to it.

She remembers living on Cypress Street and Forrest Street in 1970 and the fact that her kids couldn’t play with those on Forrest Street, having to walk them down the street if they had to go past it.

She said she recalls her kids being unable to ride the bus at one point and being forced to let them ride a taxi to get down Forrest Street safely.

She remembers having to speed walk through Forrest Street with a cart full of groceries to get back to her home safely.

“For this street to be (re)named, it makes me feel more dignified because I know what was on Forrest Street,” Miller-Cody said.

Davis said hearing her story of dealing with racism on the street was powerful.

He said he realized getting Forrest Street’s name changed was an exciting accomplishment but a frustrating one.

How many more streets did people have similar stories about? How many more streets are named after Civil War generals, slave owners or Ku Klux Klan members?

Yes, Black people may live on these streets now, and the same racial tensions may not be there anymore, but how much longer will the City of Valdosta honor these names and their histories? he asked.

Davis said if the name pushes white supremacy in underlying or overbearing ways, the city needs to get rid of it.

While the council’s majority vote in favor of renaming Forrest Street was a win, there’s still more that needs to be changed before the work is done, possibly another decade of work, Davis said.