Two streets in Harlem were renamed Saturday in honor of prominent black civil rights leaders, W.E.B. DuBois and A. Philip Randolph.
Bradhurst Avenue between West 141st Street and 155th Streets has been renamed W.E.B. DuBois Avenue in honor of the civil rights writer and activist. The entire stretch of 145th street is now called A. Philip Randolph Avenue after the political and labor leader.
Both DuBois and Randolph lived in Harlem for much of their lives, but neither died in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, their impact in the civil rights movement was felt in Harlem for years after their deaths.
"They walked those streets," Anthony Harmon, president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute New York Chapter, told the New York Times. "They were part of the community."
DuBois wrote many books that, to this day, are fundamental texts in the larger tome of African American civil rights writing, including The Souls of Black Folk. Along with being a prolific writer and scholar, DuBois helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Randolph was a prominent civil rights activist who founded the March on Washington Movement and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, which was a huge step for African American labor organization.
Other Harlem streets have been named for significant civil rights leaders since the 1970s, including Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue), Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (125th Street), and Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue).
