Berlin street to change name following anti-racism protests
August 21, 2020
Berlin's "Moor Street" is set to change its name to "Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Strasse" to honor Germany's first black scholar. Anti-racism initiatives and activists have welcomed the proposal.
Image: Imago/S. Steinach
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Berlin's Mohrenstrasse, or Moor Street in English, will be renamed to remove its racist undertones, officials from a Berlin district office announced.
Berlin-Mitte district authorities on Thursday said it will change the street name to "Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Strasse" at the request of Social Democrats (SPD) and Green party members following outrage, which came to the fore in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in the capital and beyond.
The Berlin-Mitte district office was asked to "immediately begin the renaming process" to correspond to "today's understanding of democracy" and thereby remove "the existing racist core of the name, which incriminates and harms the national and international reputation of Berlin."
Anti-racism initiatives and activists welcomed the name change. "This is a great day: Berlin is banishing an insult from the city…" said Berlin Postkolonial initiative spokesperson Mnyaka Sururu Mboro. Berlin is writing "world history," the group declared on Friday.
Organizations supporting the rights of Africans, Afro-Germans and groups that grapple with the legacy of Germany's colonial past have long demanded the renaming of the street. They object to the presence of the word "Moor," which they say is a derogatory term.
The term is dated, but many restaurants and streets across Germany still carry the name.
Moor is also a racialized reference to the Muslim inhabitants across what is now Europe and North Africa during the Middle Ages.
Germany's racist street names
Anton Wilhelm Amo is said to be Germany's first black scholar. He was an African philosopher from what is now Ghana. He received his doctorate in Halle in 1729, where he also taught. Amo also taught at the universities of Wittenberg and Jena.
Should books with racist content be revised?
While somtimes only simple textual changes are needed to update a classic, removing racist slurs does not always eliminate ideologies of the past. Here are some examples that show how revising books is a delicate affair.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
'The Little Witch' (1957)
This classic of children's literature, by Otfried Preussler, was made into a film that came out in 2018. In a 2013 revision of the book, children getting dressed up as Blacks — described using the N-word — or a "Zigeuner" (gypsy) simply picked other costumes. The publisher's decision to change some words led to a heated debate in Germany.
Image: Studiocanal
'The Little Ghost' (1966)
Thienemann publishing house also decided to review Preussler's other classic books of German children literature, including "The Robber Hotzenplotz" books and "The Little Ghost" (made into a film in 2013). They reformulated for example the friendly ghost's reaction when he turns black. Such revisions shock purists: Should books be changed? And where should the line be drawn?
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
'Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver' (1960)
Experts view Michael Ende's popular children's novel as an allegory against the Nazis' ideology. During his lifetime, the author updated his book, turning references to China into a fictional country called Mandala. However, the latest version keeps the one use of the N-word to describe the Black boy in the tale. The latest movie adaption of the work was recently released in cinemas (photo).
Image: Warner Bros., Ilze Kitshoff
The 'Pippi Longstocking' series
The N-word was already removed or replaced from the English version of Astrid Lindgren's popular books during the 1950s. The German version had been reworked in the 1990s; however, it kept the term with a footnote mentioning that it was outdated. In 2009, all references to Pippi's dad were replaced with the "South Sea King."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
'The Story of Doctor Dolittle' (1920)
Hugh Lofting's classic was reworked for its 1988 edition; instead of coming from the "Land of the White Men," Doctor Dolittle is from the "Land of the Europeans." Similarly, references to the King of Jolliginki avoid mentioning the color of his skin. Despite efforts to make race invisible, the colonial ideologies of the time are still reflected in the plot and the depictions of the characters.
'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' (1964)
In the original version of Roald Dahl's book, the Oompa-Loompas — small humans working in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory — are described as African Pygmies. The author made them come from a fictional country called Loompaland in a revised version from 1973. In the 1971 film (photo), they were played by actors with dwarfism and depicted as surreal creatures with orange skin and green hair.
Image: Imago/Zuma Press
'And Then There Were None' (1939)
The original title of Agatha Christie's masterpiece was "Ten Little N*gg*rs," based on the British blackface song that guides the plot of the mystery novel. The title of the US edition, released a month after the British one in 1939, used the last five words of the song instead. However, it has also had the problematic title "Ten Little Indians," which refers to an American rhyming song.
Image: Harper
'Tintin in the Congo' (1946)
Initially published as a serialized weekly in the 1930s, Belgian cartoonist Herge later produced a colored version of the work and revised one violent big-game hunting scene in 1976. The volume was strongly criticized for its racist content by the late 20th century. There have been attempts to ban the book; in English, it is sold with an extra explanation of the historical context.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' (1884)
Mark Twain's iconic classic is viewed as an anti-racist satire. It is also among the first American works to use vernacular English — and coarse language. The word "n*gg*r," a common racial slur in the mid-19th-century, is used over 200 times in the book. One revised version from 2011 replaces the N-word with "slave." Critics believe it is wrong to whitewash the historical context of such books.
The story of how Amo came to be in Germany is not without its own controversy. Some accounts claim Amo was abducted as a slave by the Dutch West India Company – notorious for its slave trade and exploits. Others claim Amo was "given away" to the court of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and, thus, enslaved there.
The decision came after greater discussion about racism in Germany has unfolded in the wake of global Black Lives Matter protests, in reaction to the death of African-American George Floyd while in police custody in the US.
BVG had initially wanted to rename it Glinkastraße, a street which honors Russian composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857) and which is located at the intersection of the station, complying with the rules that a station must be named after its location.
However, the Senate rejected the proposal because of anti-Semitism accusations against the composer. The search for a new name is ongoing.