RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — The City of Raleigh officially changed the name of Aycock Street in the Five Points neighborhood on Thursday morning.
The street will now be known as Roanoke Park Drive.
Neighbors and supporters held a commemoration ceremony this morning where city workers installed one of the new signs.
The street was initially named after former North Carolina Gov. Charles Aycock (1901-1905), who was in favor of school segregation and involved in the Wilmington Massacre.
Raleigh City Council voted unanimously in May to change the name of the street.
Stephen Mangano started a petition to change the name of the street that honored the former governor with ties to white supremacy.
Mangano has lived on Aycock Street for 20 years.
On Nov. 10, 1898, a white mob overthrew the locally elected government in Wilmington and destroyed the local Black-owned newspaper office, and terrorized the African American community.
An unknown number of Blacks were killed in the massacre.
“The current history we’re trying to create which is changing the name and that the adults in the room realize that that was the wrong honor and correct it,” Mangano told CBS 17 in May.
He started the petition after the death of George Floyd and the protests that followed to bring the community together.
“When you go to school and learn about the Wilmington massacre you understand Aycock’s role in sort of lighting the flames and his role in suppressing black citizens during reconstruction. You don’t want them [children] to learn that their street was named after someone and honored after that,” said Mangano.
