Gold St. could be renamed for Civil Rights activist Ida Wells

April 26, 2018 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

FILE - In this Dec. 2, 2011 file photo, Michelle Duster, great-granddaughter of civil rights pioneer Ida B. Wells who led a crusade against lynching during the early 20th century, holds a portrait of Wells in her home in Chicago's South Side. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File

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Councilmember Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn Heights-Downtown) has introduced an application to rename Gold Street in Downtown Brooklyn after civil rights activist and journalist Ida B. Wells, who lived on the street for several years. The idea came from Jacob Morris, head of the Harlem Historical Society, according to Brooklyn Heights Patch.

“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 a person,” he told Patch.

Wells, who was born as a slave in Mississippi in 1862, campaigned against lynchings in her Memphis Free Speech newspaper. She moved temporarily to Brooklyn after her offices were destroyed and one of her partners was attacked in Memphis.