Hollywood Inclined To Rename Streets Honoring Confederate Generals

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HOLLYWOOD (CBSMiami/AP) — Hollywood commissioners voted 5-2 during a contentious three-hour meeting Monday night to rename three streets because their current names are "symbols of hate."

The three streets to be renamed will be Lee Street, which is named after Gen. Robert E. Lee; Hood Street, named after Gen. John Bell Hood, and Forrest Street, named after Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

John Bell Hood, Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest all fought for the Confederacy and to preserve slavery. Forrest was also the first Grand Wizard of the KKK. The street named after him runs through a predominantly black neighborhood.

A final vote to officially rename the streets will be held August 30th.

The current plan calls for Forrest Street to become Savannah Street, Hood Street to become Macon and Lee will be renamed Louisville.

The meeting followed a protest in June that led to the arrests of five people.

The outcry nationwide to remove Confederate symbols began in June 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina after Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist shot and killed nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston. The following month, the state removed the Confederate flag from its capitol.

Since then battles over symbols of the Confederacy have sprung up across the country.

In Virginia and Georgia, the Confederate flag was removed from specialty license plates.

Recently, New Orleans removed states of Confederate military leaders Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard from public landmarks.

Here in Florida, Orlando recently removed a Confederate statue known as "Johnny Reb" from Lake Eola Park. It had been in the park for 100 years.