Petition Calls For Renaming Robert E. Lee Road In South Austin

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX — A online petition to change the name of Robert E. Lee Road in South Austin has gathered more than 10,000 signatures as of Monday night.

The Change.org petition was sparked after the death of a woman in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend who was there to decry white nationalism. Since its recent formation, the petition intended for delivery to Austin City Council has gathered more than 10,400 signatures — 2,500 of those gathered in the first 24 hours of the petition's launch, according to organizers calling themselves "No Hate in the ATX."

Its organizers note the street sign is out of place in Austin, both for its progressive vibe but also because of the city's lack of a historical link to the Confederate general.

"Austin has no connection with the confederate general Robert E. Lee, and yet we have a prominent road near Zilker Park named for him," the petition reads. "It is way past time that a progressive city such as Austin abandoned such a memorial to a confederate traitor, and used that space to commemorate a more local hero who was on the right side of history."

A suggested renaming to Fritz Teneger Road is made as part of the petition, honoring the Hill Country unionist and martyr killed by Confederate troops after refusing to take an oath to the Confederacy. "He would make a fitting figure to commemorate here," petition organizers wrote. "But the final name should be the result of community input."

Four of the Robert E. Lee signs in South Austin were defaced with spray paint over the weekend after the attack in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacists were protesting the proposed removal of a statue of Lee located in that city.

The specter of General Lee has loomed as polarizing force before in the recent past locally. Last year, the Austin school board voted to rename Robert E. Lee Elementary in the wake of heightened backlash against remaining symbols of the Confederacy nationwide. Ultimately, the school district voted to change the school name in honor of Russell Lee, the first professor of photography at the University of Texas at Austin.

>>> Photo of Gen. Robert E. Lee via the New York Public Library Digital Collections