VALDOSTA — Forrest Street will become Barack Obama Boulevard.

D.J. Davis, fellow members of Action Sociology Anthropology Club, and the majority of people present Thursday evening rejoiced as Valdosta City Council approved the request to change Forrest Street’s name.

City Council voted 6-1 to change the name from Forrest Street to Barack Obama Boulevard.

District 6 Councilman Andy Gibbs cast the only opposing vote. Mayor Pro-Tem Tim Carroll was absent from the meeting.

Gibbs moved to table the vote in favor of taking a closer look at the history behind Forrest Street but it failed without a second motion.

Davis and the Action Sociology Anthropology Club had a goal to gather at least 187 signatures of parcel owners on Forrest Street and Forrest Street Extension to meet a city mandate of needing 60% of owners’ signatures to consider changing a street name. 

Once done, the group raised $3,000 by June 20, a reimbursement fee that needed to be paid before the verification process for the signatures was completed June 22.

This reimbursement fee, the actual costs of renaming the street, had the potential to contain costs for advertising, new signs and/or installation of new signs.

The Rev. Floyd Rose, a Valdosta civil rights activist, began the effort to change the street name from Forrest Street to Barack Obama Boulevard a few years ago.

Based on the Mary Turner Project, Forrest Street is believed to be named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and a founder of the Ku Klux Klan. 

Minutes to an 1883 Valdosta City Council meeting possibly link the street to being named for Elbert Forrest, a Black businessman, but many advocates for changing the street name have claimed it unlikely that a white City Council in the 19th century South would have named a street for an African American. 

A few years ago, Rose and others gathered the names of people who lived along the street, only to have the city say owners – not necessarily residents – needed to sign the petition to change the street name. The first effort failed. 

Davis and Action Sociology Anthropology Club renewed the name-change campaign several months ago, following the city’s protocols to change a street name detail by detail from gathering the needed number of property owners’ signatures and raising the money to fund the change.

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VALDOSTA – Valdosta City Council approved changing the name of Forrest Street to Barack Obama Boulevard in a 6-1 vote Thursday evening.

The Times will update this story soon.