Reclaiming Edmund Boulevard
Lena Smith Boulevard:
A Name That Reflects Our Values​
It’s official — the community has chosen, and the result is powerful: it will be Lena Smith Boulevard. Lena Olive Smith was a determined African American woman civil rights attorney. She helped shape Minneapolis’s legal and community institutions while defending Black residents against housing discrimination, public exclusion, and racial violence.
Lena Olive Smith
If you’ve supported or followed this process, you know our campaign began with a call to reject the legacy of Edmund G. Walton — a real estate developer who championed racial segregation in Minneapolis. But the heart of this movement has always been about more than just removal; it’s about restoration and reimagination. Over the past few years, we gathered more than 60 naming suggestions from neighbors at public events, through surveys, and one-on-one conversations. To ensure racial equity was at the center of this process, we formed a diverse Naming Committee in 2024 — nine community members representing a range of identities and perspectives — who developed criteria and identified ten names for deeper review. From there, three finalists emerged: Lena Olive Smith, Wakpa Tanka, and John Francis Wheaton. Then, in collaboration with Councilmember Aurin Chowdhury (Ward 12), a public survey went out across newsletters and community meetings. Nearly 600 residents responded — 87% supported a name change, and 57% of ranked-choice respondents selected Lena Smith on the first round.
We’re thrilled not only by this overwhelming support, but also by the clarity of purpose in this choice. Lena Olive Smith’s lifelong fight for justice — from housing equity to public accommodation and labor rights — is a direct challenge to the values Walton once imposed on this land. With this name change, we are not just correcting the record — we are making history. We are uplifting a legacy of courage, inclusion, and community power that will resonate for generations to come.
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Visit our page about Lena Olive Smith to learn more Lena Smith and her legacy.
What are racial covenants?
Racially restrictive covenants are clauses in property deeds specifying that a particular piece of land could only be held by white people. Beginning in 1910, Edmund G. Walton began using covenants to create and market exclusively white neighborhoods here. Governments generally allowed covenants to stand until the Civil Rights era, when they became unenforceable. Covenants still shaped the legacies of racial segregation, discrimination, and the racial wealth gap. In 2021, a study found that Minneapolis has the worst-in-the-nation gap in home ownership. In 2018, Hennepin and Ramsey Counties featured a substantial home ownership gap between white-headed households (70.35%) and Black-headed households (23.35%).
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Edmund G. Walton (1865-1919) was a prominent land developer in Minneapolis. He introduced dozens of housing additions into the property market, including much of the emerging south side. In 1910, he became the first developer in Minnesota to apply racially-restrictive covenants to the properties he sold, which introduced a way of segregating the Twin Cities. Soon, other land developers began to follow his lead across new neighborhoods in the growing Twin Cities metro area, and other parts of Minnesota. Walton named Edmund Boulevard, a magnificent tree-lined street that traces the Mississippi River for about 1.5 miles.
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Who was Edmund Walton?
Why change this street name?
The names of our streets, parks, and schools tell a story about our history and values. We currently have twelve street signs -- Edmund Blvd -- with the name of a man who instituted racial exclusion in our neighborhood. Removing his name is one step toward acknowledging our racist history, repudiating the man and his practices, and imagining a more fair and inclusive future in our community.
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