Amanda M. Usher | The Valdosta Daily TimesValdosta resident Truoise Nash signs a petition to rename Forrest Street to Barack Obama Boulevard early Monday morning at her home. 

VALDOSTA — Truoise Nash, a resident on Forrest Street for 30 years, said a change is needed. 

Early Monday morning, she signed a petition offered by the People’s Tribunal to rename Forrest Street to Barack Obama Boulevard.

The civil rights group asserts Forrest Street was named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former slave owner, Confederate general and a founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

“We don’t need to be represented by someone who hated my great-grandmother; my great-grandparents were slaves, and I don’t think I need to live on a street and honor him,” Nash said.

She and Tribunal members walked along the 800 and 900 blocks of Forrest asking for residents’ signatures on the petition.

While they met residents who support the change, others opposed it.

Shirley Fountain expressed her strong opposition to the name change. She has lived on Forrest Street since 1972.

“Hope you don’t get enough signatures,” she told petitioners as they walked away from her door.

“It’s been good enough all these years. Why we have to change it now,” she said.

Her objection to the name change stems from her unwillingness to change her mailing address, she said.

“I think it’s senseless is what I think, and I understand you people are doing your job, but I think it’s senseless. I really do,” she said.

Nash urges opponents to research history and pray to God about the correct way to do things. She said she believes it is time for black people to be honored.

“We have been enslaved for hundreds of years, and we have been on the back burner for more than that, so it’s just time for us to make a change of everything and to be represented,” she said.

Tribunal Treasurer Kathryn Harris had the idea to rename Forrest after former President Barack Obama.

Choosing Obama’s name is important because he was the first black president, said Paul Ransom, Tribunal vice president. Ransom said Obama was scandal-free and void of any personal negativity.

“He was hope for black Americans. In my lifetime, I never thought that I would see an African-American president, and that was one of the greatest things for me personally that happened in this country,” he said.

The People’s Tribunal will continue its mission to gain residents’ signatures for their petition, Harris confirmed.

The Tribunal needs approximately 60 percent of Forrest Street residents’ names on the petition to present the proposal to Valdosta City Council.

Amanda Usher is a reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times. She can be contacted at 229-244-3400 ext.1274.