STONEWALLED

Georgia County Won’t Let Go of Its Confederate Street Names

A proposal to change the names didn’t even make it to a vote.

Clayton County in Georgia will not be renaming streets with ties to Confederate Army generals after the proposal was snubbed by county commissioners at a meeting Tuesday. Although Clayton County Commissioner DeMont Davis had been confident the resolution would pass, no one backed the motion to rename the streets when it was introduced and therefore it didn’t even go to a vote. Residents had reportedly welcomed the possibility of change, with one citing a 2022 study which found that houses on streets named after Confederate figures sell for 3 percent less on average than those of a similar size nearby on streets which aren’t linked to secessionists. “The whole street is named after slave masters, plantations, and all that above but the majority [of] people who stay on it are Black or Hispanic, so it will be a great thing to do to change the name,” Clayton County resident Mardel Heckstall, who lives in an area which has roads named after the likes of Robert E. Lee and Jeff Davis, told 11 Alive.