DOWNTOWN — A proposed ordinance could change the name of a Downtown street from a controversial explorer and settler to the first Black president.
Ald. Lamont Robinson (4th) introduced an ordinance at Wednesday’s City Council meeting to rename Columbus Drive after former President Barack Obama.
Columbus Drive stretches from the intersection of East Grand Avenue in Streeterville to Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable Lake Shore Drive in the South Loop. Formerly known as Lake Shore Drive, the road was renamed in 2021 after the Black man acknowledged as the founder of Chicago.
Robinson said in a statement the street renaming would create a new tourism destination Downtown. Obama got his start in politics in Chicago and was a senator from Illinois before becoming president. He and wife Michelle Obama still have a home in Kenwood.
“Renaming Columbus Drive to Barack Obama Drive is a way to honor the legacy of the first Black president of the United States and a 4th Ward resident, from his beginnings as a community organizer to his historic election night celebration in Grant Park,” Robinson said.
“This is our opportunity as a city to give him his flowers while he’s still alive and recognize his journey that has inspired millions, including myself, to believe that anything is possible,” the alderman said in a statement.
Robinson’s proposed name change is cosponsored by Alds. Maria Hadden (49th), Pat Dowell (3rd), Desmon Yancy (5th), Walter Burnett Jr. (27th), Jeanette Taylor (20th), Matt Martin (47th), Chris Taliaferro (29th) and Angela Clay (46th). The proposal will be heard by the City Council’s transportation and public way committee.
The proposal would be the latest street renaming or removal of Columbus honorifics from public spaces.
Before the renaming of Lake Shore Drive, Chicago officials renamed Congress Parkway to Ida B. Wells Drive, honoring the pioneering investigative journalist and civil rights champion.
Columbus statues have been removed from Grant Park, Arrigo Park in Little Italy and from a South Chicago intersection.
In a statement to the Sun-Times, the president of the Chicago branch of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans called Obama “worthy” of an honor but said the name change would be “canceling” history and amount to a “direct attack on our culture.”
The group sued the city in 2021 after former Mayor Lori Lightfoot had Grant Park’s Christopher Columbus statue removed in the wake of civil unrest in 2020.
Construction continues on the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park.
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