Memphis City Councilman Frank Colvett Jr. tells ‘Wake Up Memphis’ with Robyn Walensky it’s almost certain a section of Poplar Avenue in front of the jail at 201 Poplar will be changed to Black Lives Matter Avenue.
“I’m a little upset that we’re focusing on renaming a street, like that’s going to make anyone safer, like that’s going to change anything,” Colvett tells ‘Wake Up Memphis,’ “and at the end of the day look where they’re changing it, look where they want to change it. This is a poke in the eye of our police officers because, in some weird idea, this is going to force the cops to say, instead of taking someone to 201 Poplar, they’re going to take them to 201 Black Lives Matter.”The Memphis city councilman says it’s almost a guarantee it will pass during the Memphis City Council meeting Tuesday night.
“To say that it’s an uphill battle, I’d say it’s almost vertical,” Colvett tells Walensky in terms of defeating the vote, “I think it’s going to go through, I think at this point they don’t want to hear any competing or alternative ideas, which, as they talk about bring equality and all that, I wouldn’t be surprised if they absolutely make a show of not listening to anybody else’s input.”
Mike Williams, the President of the Memphis Police Association, host of KWAM’s ‘Behind the Badge,’ program says he doesn’t agree with the street name change.
“Memphis is a predominantly African American city,” Williams, who is also African American, tells ‘Wake Up Memphis,’ “You do have a lot of African Americans that are being incarcerated at 201 Poplar, this is not going to change anything, to name a street Black Lives Matter. What if we name a street Confederate Way?”