VALDOSTA – Valdosta State University’s sociology club A Chance to Initiate Opportunities Now plans on collecting signatures for a petition to change Troup Street to Mary Turner Street this coming August, according to DJ Davis, club vice president.

The City of Valdosta currently has a moratorium on renaming street signs to review ordinance 2019-2, which currently stipulates that requisite signatures of 60% of the owners or verifiable residents of all parcels of land on the petitioned public street or alley. Each parcel of land needs one signature per parcel, which can include single family and multi-family homes, townhouses, duplexes, condominiums and apartments and commercial buildings.

The ordinance also specifies that owners and residents have to be physically present and sign any petition regarding renaming.

Davis said that ACTION plans on utilizing lessons learned from changing Forrest Street to Barack Obama Boulevard. The club will be doing more community outreach to make the process flow more smoothly.

”This time around, we’re having another rally to have residents come to us and sign,” he said. “We’re going to hit each parcel and collect signatures that way. It saves us time.”

Davis revealed this gives ACTION time to regroup and plan on executing a compromise for the street renaming with District 3 Councilwoman Sandra Tooley, who would like a part of Troup Street to be named after the late Gerald Johnson, a Troup Street resident who was instrumental to beautification efforts for the street, which included adding sidewalks to make the area safer for pedestrians.

“I was going to object to a full renaming of Troup Street to Mary Turner Street. I would like the portion from Hill Avenue to Griffin Avenue. That area used to have ditches, no sidewalks, no driveways. Gerald Johnson was a lifelong resident of Troup Street who spent most of his life advocating to get that area cleaned up,” she said.

“He wanted it to look like Woodrow Wilson Drive. And he succeeded. There’s so much history between him and that street that shouldn’t go unacknowledged. I wish that we could have named it after him before he passed.”

Mary Turner was brutally killed in a series of South Georgia lynchings a century ago. 

Dr. Tom Hochschild, VSU sociology professor and advisor to ACTION, agrees with the street naming compromise, noting there are many prominent African-American figures who contributed to history that “deserve to be remembered.”

“We think it’s important to accurately reflect the past of Valdosta and South Georgia. We want to honor people like Mary Turner for their bravery and standing up to racism and violence. However, there are many African-Americans who are worthy of having streets named after them. We’re still doing research on potential candidates who can have a street renamed after them,” he said.

Davis said he plans on holding a town hall meeting to get feedback from the community about the street renaming and the compromise in late May.