A citizen-led petition to change three local street names in Phoenix became the topic of discussion among the Phoenix Land Use and Livability Subcommittee meeting last Wednesday, Sept. 16.
Indian School Road, Steele Indian School Park, and Robert E. Lee Street were all brought to Phoenix City Council’s attention by Susan Steinberg in late June, calling the current names “offensive” and “derogatory in nature.”
The City Council approved for the formal process to begin the official name change of the selected streets shortly after on July 1.
Alan Stephenson, the Planning and Development Director for the city of Phoenix, said the official name change process has already begun with Robert E. Lee street when Squaw Peak Drive went under review in early July as well.
McKenzie Allen-Charmley, a junior and also the secretary of the Native American Journalism Association at Arizona State University, is Alaskan Native, and in favor of renaming the streets and park.
“The term ‘Indian’ is vague, it’s misleading, and it misrepresents our culture,” she said.
Allen-Charmley also said that grouping all different communities under one term fails to give justice to their people and culture.
“To simplify it into one word is offensive because we are more than one word,” she said.
The street name “Indian School Road” has been in city directories for over 100 years, according to Stephenson, and was a reference to a Native American boarding school that opened back in 1891, known as the Phoenix Indian School.
Children would be taken from their homes on reservations and placed into the school to assimilate into American culture, starting off by cutting their hair and prohibiting the use of their own language, according to an article from kjzz.org. The school later trained their students to work.
“I don’t want to be reminded of that oppression when I am driving down the street,” Allen-Charmley said.
In the meeting last week, Steele Indian School Park was also approved to be renamed. The park was named after Horace W. Steele for his contribution to help bring the park to life in 2001.
“The park was designed with Native American influences as well as input,” Stephenson said. He also said that some of the original buildings from Phoenix Indian School are being preserved there as well.
Unlike changing a street name, there are extra steps needed in order for a park to be renamed. Stephenson said that should the name-change process continue, the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department board would need to approve the process separately.
In Steinberg’s original request to the City Council, she suggested that Indian School Road be replaced with the name “Begay” after Jerry C. Begay, who servied as a Navajo Code Talker in World War II.
A second name suggestion by Steinberg is “Virginia Jones Navajo,” after Virgina Jones. Jones suffers from the effects of uranium exposure, including coughing and heart pain. Steinberg wants to use the new street name to “honor her pain,” and bring awareness to former uranium miners and the problems and illnesses that are “plaguing so many in the Navajo Nation.”
More conversations on the possibility of renaming the streets will continue, and no motion was carried following the discussion at the meeting.
But Allen-Charmley said that even the small possible changes such as a street name, is monumental, and helps spark the change of decolonization, which Native American communities are “striving to achieve.”
“The street needs to be renamed out of respect,” she said.
Contact the reporter at sedetwil@asu.edu.
