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New Orleans Urged to Rename Lee Boulevard after Music Legend Allen Toussaint

A member of New Orleans city council is pushing to change a street currently named after the Confederate general Robert E Lee and replace it with one the city’s most famous musicians, Allen Toussaint, who died in 2015.

Councilmember Jared C Brossett introduced an ordinance to rename the street that goes through the northern part of the city near Lake Pontchartrain.

Toussaint was a songwriter, producer, pianist and performer whose decades-long career helped make such hits as Working in the Coal Mine and Southern Nights.

“The City of New Orleans should prioritize celebrating our culture bearers, our diversity, and everything that makes our city special, not those who worked to tear us apart and represent a horrible history of racism that we are still dealing with today,” said Brossett in a news release announcing the effort.

“Allen Toussaint is a New Orleans native and world-renowned musician. He represents the very best of our city.”

Brossett sent a letter to the city’s planning commission, which has 60 days to hold a public hearing and then present a report before the matter goes to the full council, according to the press release.

Read entire article at The Guardian